Bright minds in Kerala have found the ideal way of teaching coronavirus safety: a lot of hand-wringing.

A federation of event managers in the state has released a short Kathakali video featuring the exquisite hand gestures typical of the art form. Except that the artiste is demonstrating how to properly use a hand sanitiser to keep the virus at bay.

Not to be outdone, Kerala police have captivated social media with a clip showing six masked cops shaking their legs to a peppy tune while rubbing their palms and interlocking their fingers — a lesson on thorough hand-washing.

Both videos were filmed and released on Tuesday.

“We chose a Kathakali artiste to convey the message of Break the Chain since it is one art form that signifies Kerala,” Martin Emmanuel, president of the Event Management Association Kerala, told The Telegraph.

Break the Chain is a campaign urging people to stop the chain of potential transmission by reporting even the slightest possibility that they may have been infected.

The video begins with the fully dressed up dancer walking towards a house. The man of the house greets him and puts sanitiser drops on both his hands. The dancer then shows through his artistic hand gestures how to use the sanitiser.

“Kathakali ‘mudras’ (hand gestures) can represent almost anything,” Emmanuel said. “We are planning a few more videos to highlight the need to follow hygienic practices to contain the spread of the coronavirus.”

Scene from a video clip shows policemen giving hand-washing lessons Sourced by Correspondent

The video was shot outside one of the villas at Le Meridien Hotel in Kochi.

V.P. Pramod Kumar, deputy director of the Kerala police’s media centre, said the cop video “took just four hours from conception to release since we used in-house talent for filming, editing and even dancing”.

Nor did the production team have to sweat over the background music: it used the catchy title song of the Malayalam movie Ayyappanum Koshiyum, sung by Nanchamma, an aged tribal artiste who has become a sensation with the number.

“One of our colleagues suggested, ‘Why not go for a dance by men in khaki?’ We started work at 2.30pm (on Tuesday), spent an hour each on working out the dance moves, rehearsing, shooting and editing,” Kumar said.

The dancers demonstrated the hand-washing method popularised by the World Health Organisation.

Shared 35,000 times on the media centre’s Facebook page by Wednesday evening, the 1.24-minute video has gone viral even on messenger apps like WhatsApp and has impressed chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

“Let’s #Breakthechain. Let’s put everything to work, including humour. Appreciate this effort from the police personnel. Here they explain the need for hand hygiene. Share the word, end the disease,” a tweet from Vijayan said.