A public health appeal featuring a young boy urging people to stay indoors “so I can continue to have my mummy and daddy around” is going viral on social media. 

The brief video stars 11-year-old Aiden, who in a 90-second clip encourages people to act responsibly and follow guidelines restricting outdoor movements. 

Authorities have introduced a raft of laws and measures to enforce social distancing and keep people indoors, as they work to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. 

“I was angry when I saw people out and about, as though nothing had changed. No, it’s not OK to go for a picnic. It’s not OK to be in a crowd. We need to stay home and do the things we never had time for before,” Aiden tells the viewer. 

“The more careful we are now, the quicker we can emerge from this situation. Please, listen to the advice being given to us. Stay at home, and do not go out except for urgent errands. If we stay at home there is no way the virus can be passed on from one person to another”. 

“We are in this together and we need to come out of this together,” he says. 

The video, which was posted to social media by the government’s COVID19 Facebook page, had been shared more than 500 times by Saturday morning.