‘Consider face masks like Covid-19 vaccine’: Satyendar Jain

New Delhi, Oct 30: Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain on Friday encouraged people to wear masks and urged everyone should consider them as a vaccine against the coronavirus disease.

"When we had imposed the lockdown, cases did not go down. If 100 per cent of people wear masks, Covid-19 infection can be controlled to a certain extent. Benefits of wearing masks are just as many as those of a lockdown, if not more. Until there is a vaccine, masks should be considered as vaccines," he told news agency ANI.

In Delhi, there has been nearly 46 per cent increase in the new cases over the past four weeks, and the positivity rate during the same period has escalated by nearly nine per cent

"The rising cases were attributed to social gatherings during the festivities, deteriorating air quality, increasing incidences of respiratory disorders and clusters of positive cases at workplaces. Fatigue among frontline workers was also discussed," it said

The national capital was advised to aggressively ramp up testing, increase RT-PCR tests, focus on contact tracing and effectively enforce isolation of the traced contacts within the first 72 hours.

It was advised to focus on containment zones and strict implementation of perimeter control according to MHA guidelines. The health authorities were advised to give additional thrust to IEC practices and proactively promote wearing of masks and other COVID appropriate behaviours, the health ministry said.