CHENNAI: In a move to ensure everyone wears facemasks in the battle against COVID-19, the Tamil Nadu government since March has distributed 7.19 crore reusable cotton face masks across the State at free of cost.
According to data shared by the Health Department to The New Indian Express, 47.8 lakhs masks have been distributed in Chennai alone.
The State government has been taking various measures to spread awareness on mask wearing at various strata of society. One such is officials directly visiting busy areas such as markets, slums, shopping areas, and congested streets in the cities.
Health Secretary Dr J Radhakrishnan, who has been visiting various localities in foot and distributing face masks across the State, said that challenges in enforcing mask wearing are area-specific. "We are taking this ground-level initiative to educate people. We verbally explain to stake holders about the importance of masks and lockdown by adopting to colloquial approaches," Dr Radhakrishnan told The New Indian Express.
He said that the vendors and shop keeps are made to understand that if they don’t wear masks and COVID cases spurt, it would lead to their streets being cordoned off and they may lose business. "We explain the realtime difficulties to them and ask them to be partners with us. Some of the stakeholders become watchdogs too and when we visit, they point out the streets where mask compliance is low," said Radhakrishnan.
Radhakrishnan said that the mask compliance was lesser at the residential complex areas and it was good among the traders. "Field work has made us understand the people's psychology and people also must understand that mask wearing is the only sustainable solution to fight COVID-19," he added.
Apart from this, the civic bodies and metro rail authorities too have taken various measures to spread awareness on mask wearing.
While the Chennai Corproation recently organized various dramas, skits, and dances in public places to spread awareness on masks, the CMRL too has roped in parai artists to spread awareness in its metro stations.
Corporation officials said that still awareness is being spread in autos with loud speakers. "We continue to communicate with people through spreading messages in autos apart from other cultural events," said a Corporation officials.