Indonesia has ordered its citizens to wear cloth face masks when going outside as the numbers of coronavirus infections rise to 2,273 on Sunday, Health Ministry official Achmad Yurianto said.
“Everybody must wear face masks. Surgical masks and N95 masks are only for medical workers, but wear cloth masks because many asymptomatic cases were found out there,” Yurianto said told a news briefing, reports Reuters.
The Southeast Asian country reported 181 new cases on Sunday, while the death toll rose by 7 to 198.
According to Aljazeera, Indonesia reported its first two coronavirus cases on March 2, and has tallied 1,986 confirmed cases and 181 deaths as of April 3, making it the country with the most coronavirus deaths and the highest fatality rate in Southeast Asia.
Indonesia’s death rate stood at 9.1 percent compared to 5.2 worldwide as of Friday. In comparison, the Philippines had a 4.5 percent death rate and Malaysia had a 1.6 percent rate during the same period, although both countries have higher number of cases with more than 3,000 each.
Some 95 health workers in the capital Jakarta, the hardest-hit part of the country, have been infected with coronavirus, according to the news portal Kompas.com on April 3. At least 13 have died as of April 2, according to the government.
