Indian Police Officer Goes Viral Wearing Coronavirus Helmet To Help Raise Awareness of Staying Home

(TMU) — Rajesh Babu, a police inspector in the southern city of Chennai has creatively took efforts to raise awareness of the seriousness of the CoVid-19 pandemic. The officer began wearing an artist’s rendition of the Coronavirus and believes to be having an immediate effect on the people of India.

The uniquely designed helmet was constructed to portray the likeness of the microscopic image of the Coronavirus. The helmet is covered in the characteristic club-like projections emanating from the viral membrane.

Local artist B. Gowtham, founder of the Chennai-based organization Art Kingdom devised the striking design after realizing people weren’t taking the illness seriously because of its invisibility to the naked eye. He decided creating a mask which would be more visually optimal would scare the people into thinking the virus was coming towards them.

Then the artist added, “people will be frightened.”

A 21 day nationwide lock-down closed down all stores which pushed the artist to improvise by using newspapers and tissue paper to construct the helmet spikes.

Officer Rajesh loved the idea of this unusual approach to educate the people about the importance of staying home. He has since then gone viral on social media for wearing a helmet. The helmet has an ability to stir up fear or comic relief but in either case its shocking appearance has raised awareness.

Speaking to Asian News International, Rajesh Babu quoted: “We take all the steps, but still people come out on the streets. Therefore, this corona helmet is one of the steps we are taking to ensure that people are aware of the seriousness of the police. The helmet is an attempt to do something different.”

The new approach was been more successful than the prior effort of hitting civilians with police batons which were not staying home.

“When I wear this, the thought of corona virus comes into the minds of the commuters,” the policeman told the local media. “Especially, the children react strongly after seeing this and want to be taken home.”

India fears that a spread of Covid-19 at the rate of China and Italy would cause nationwide crisis due to the fragile health-care system and economy. While India has seen 29 deaths and just over 1,050 cases, experts fear the real tally could be much higher and say the disease is already spreading in the community. The authorities of India are working together in hopes to spread the message to the population of 1.3 billion. They remain positive they will not see a spread of that magnitude.

By Lana Eucalyptus | Creative Commons | TheMindUnleashed.com