On every Independence Day we take the pledge against something which implicitly or explicitly impacts our real freedom — like lack of education, rising corruption or malnutrition, but on this Independence Day we need to pledge ‘GETTING INDEPENDENCE FROM CORONAVIRUS’ because this is our greatest enemy now. And for this, the safest, quite an affordable and feasible single point intervention is ‘Mask-Wearing’. So, let’s take the pledge to make the MASK IS MUST campaign reach to the every stratum of society. We need to appeal the people to wear mask and for this ‘Ask for Mask’ should be our call to action.
Using a face mask is not only useful to prevent infected coughing droplets from reaching uninfected persons, but is also crucial for these uninfected persons to avoid breathing the minute atmospheric particles (aerosols) that infected people emit when talking and that can remain in the atmosphere tens of minutes and can travel tens of feet.
Experts are also unanimous that alone mask-wearing can reduce 60% chances of infection. Mask wearing is a much-needed behaviour change to fight COVID-19 infection. In the next six months, it must be the moral responsibility of every Indian to ‘Ask for Mask’ with fellow citizens to put a full stop on the surge of this pandemic. So, this Independence, I appeal to the countrymen to adhere to Mask-Wearing and motivate others to follow this by the slogan —‘Ask for Mask’. On an optimistic note, I expect that everyone will support this much needed behaviour change — ‘Mask-Wearing’.

Jai Hind
Jai Bharat
Happy Independence Day
Dr Swadeep Srivastava
Founder, HEAL Foundation