Kerala becomes latest Indian state to make wearing masks in public mandatory amid surge in COVID-19 cases

The rise in COVID-19 cases in India has caused a lot of concern among the experts and on Wednesday, Kerala became the latest state to make wearing masks compulsory in public.

The decision was taken after a review meeting chaired by the state’s health minister Veena George on Monday advised that the state needs to increase vigilance when it comes to social distancing and also put special emphasis on people wearing masks in public as the number of cases continue to rise.

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An order was passed by the government which said that the mask mandate will be compulsory, and anyone found flouting the rules will be punished under the Disaster Management Act of India.

India has experienced a huge surge of cases and states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, and Punjab have already passed mask mandates.

The Kerala government decided to lift most of its existing measures which were implemented to combat COVID-19 as cases fell massively. However, with the change in situation, all the rules are expected to come back and a fine on not wearing masks in public is also expected in the future.

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According to the official date provided by the Indian Health Ministry, 2927 cases were reported on Tuesday taking the total number of active patients in the country to 16,279.

The booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccines are available to the public and the country is looking to get a majority of their population vaccinated with the booster dose before the rumoured ‘fourth wave’ of the pandemic.

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