Tamil Nadu Health Minister Thiru M. Subramanian said on Tuesday that wearing of masks could be considered mandatory in the state if the number of coronavirus cases cross the 500 or 1,000 mark. He said that it would be appropriate to wear a mask in crowded places. The minister said that there is a gradual increase in the number of Covid cases in the state and five people have died due to the infection so far. Subramanian said, “The government has not announced any relaxation in appropriate behavior against Covid and it is safe to wear a mask in crowded places.” He asked the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, K.K. He said this while replying to a calling attention motion moved by Palaniswami. The minister said that as per the Centre’s advisory, wearing of masks is still mandatory, but people are not taking it seriously. The minister said that about 386 cases of Covid have been reported in the state in the last one and a half month and five-six cases of infection are being reported daily. He said that since the pandemic is spreading from hospitals, the government has made wearing masks mandatory from April 1 in 11,333 hospitals across the state. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)}; if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′; n.queue=();t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)(0); s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’, ‘ fbq(‘init’, ‘550264998751686’); fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);