PUTRAJAYA, May 29 — There is no need to wear face mask when carrying out activities alone such as jogging or driving.
Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the people are only required to wear face mask when they have symptoms or in a public environment with other people.
“The need of face mask is to break the COVID-19 chain, but if one is jogging in a place with no people, there is no need wear. Just ensure there is a two to three metres distance from other joggers.
“Similarly when driving alone, there is no need to wear mask,” he said in the daily media conference on COVID-19 development here today.
He said wearing the N95 face mask up to three or four hours could cause breathlessness.
It was reported on international media that two school students in China collapsed and died while running with face mask during a physical education training.
In the United States, a man wearing an N95 face mask died following the lack of oxygen.
Asked whether the Health Ministry (MOH) is looking at the proposal that all foreign workers stop work temporarily to undergo health screening and confirmed free of the outbreak, Dr Noor Hisham said the proposal is not practical.
He said the COVID-19 test laboratory capacity of MOH could not screen more than five million foreigners in the country if they were to temporarily stop work in all sectors.
“The test laboratory capacity is now maybe 30,000 daily, and it would take months to test all foreigners in the country.
“We are adopting the method of targeted screening to conduct tests when we detect a positive case, through close contact tracing,” he said.
— BERNAMA