More People Ignore Face Masks

NONTHABURI, Oct 30 (TNA) -- Health authorities urge people to protect themselves from the novel coronavirus by regularly wearing face masks as a survey has found only 67.1% of respondents are using them. Dr Kiattiphum Wongrajit, permanent secretary for public health, said the local COVID-19 situation was under control because new patients were mostly quarantined arrivals. More than 50% of the patients were young people and people at working ages, between 20 and 49 years old, and were asymptomatic. They usually travelled and thus posed high chances of disease transmission, he said. “There has not been a vaccine. People can protect themselves with DMHT. D stands for social distancing, M for masks, H for hand washing and T for quick testing and treatment. Doing these consistently can help prevent infection,” Dr Kiattiphum said. The Ministry of Public Health conducted a survey on 2,670 people on Oct 1-14 and found that the percentage of healthy people wearing face masks dropped to 67.1% from 93.5% at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak. The percentage of ill people wearing masks also fell significantly to 81.8% and that of people regularly wearing masks went down to 51.4%. The habits of washing hands after using toilets and before and after meals remained stable at the good levels of 70-86%. The percentage of people going out amid COVID-19 concerns rose from 19.6% to 30%. The survey also found that 29.2% of respondents were seriously concerned about COVID-19 and 65.6% were either moderately or slight worried, and the percentage of people confident of the disease control measures of the Ministry of Public Health rose from 61.8% at the beginning of the outbreak to 85.7% at present. (TNA)