Street artist takes to New York City walls to spread awareness about COVID-19

In a bid to spread public health awareness about the novel coronavirus pandemic, one street artist in New York is urging people to ‘stay positive’ and maintain social distance through wall paintings. DeGrupo, the NY street artist, has created signs around the city with messages like ‘wash your hands’ and ‘stay home’. The street artist started writing those messages on the walls after he watched many of his fellow New Yorkers failing to follow health experts’ pleas to create social distance. 

DeGrupo reportedly said that he has tried to stay positive, but as the numbers of infected continue to grow, he said that he has been fighting a sense of helplessness. The street artist added that he has been keeping his distance from everyone and only occasionally leaves his apartment to post his messages. Furthermore, he added that the social distance has left him feeling incredibly lonely, but he still believes that it is necessary to beat the deadly virus. 

DeGrupo said, “My art, doing art and spreading this message out, it helps me keep-alive”. He added, “We need to stay positive. We need to stay focused and I think by staying away from each other, distance ourselves from each other I think this epidemic is gonna go away or even we are going to have more time to find a cure”. 

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US could become new epicentre 

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation said that US has the potential to become the new epicentre of the deadly virus due to a ‘very lager acceleration in infections’ in the country. Currently, US has 54,881 confirmed coronavirus cases and the deadly virus has claimed more than 780 lives in the country. The crisis due to the pandemic has prompted more governors to join states ordering all citizens to stay at home and practice social distancing. WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris has told the reporters that over the past 24 hours, 85 per cent of the new cases worldwide were from Europe and the US and out of those, at least 40 per cent were just from the US.  However, the WHO spokesperson also lauded the improvements made in the country with more intensified testing among other efforts to isolate the sick and trace their immediate contacts exposed to the fatal COVID-19.

(With AP inputs) 

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