Indonesia church decorates Christmas tree with masks, sanitisers to promote COVID awareness

Men decorate a Christmas tree with masks and hand sanitizers at a church in Surabaya, East Java Province, Indonesia, December 16, 2020, Picture taken December 16, 2020. Antara Foto/Didik Suhartono/via REUTERS

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A catholic church in Indonesia has decorated a Christmas tree with protective masks and hand sanitisers as a way to spread awareness of COVID-19 in the festive season, as the country's daily death toll hit a record high on Sunday.

"The tree was made with the intention of making people more aware of the importance of maintaining health protocols," Markus Marcelinus Hardo Iswanto of the parish of The Catholic Church of Christ the King in Indonesia's second-largest city Surabaya told Reuters.