Tobacco, alcohol and drugs used to cope with emotions or boredom can worsen physical, mental health and reduce immunity during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, said the Union Health Ministry on Sunday adding that people shouldn’t shake hands or hug each other and wear a face-cover at all times to reduce the virus spread.

“Smoking makes people more vulnerable to COVID-19 because it leads to lung diseases, reduces lung capacity and may lead to virus transmission from hand to mouth,” it said.

It also cautioned that there is no evidence to show that regularly rinsing your nose with saline helps prevent infection.

The Ministry said now that the cases are on the rise, staff showing flu-like illness shouldn’t attend office and seek medical advice. But people who show symptoms within office spaces must be isolated from other employees.

“Offices must make sure that their workplace is clean and hygienic and that there is regular disinfection of surfaces and objects, along with promoting regular hand washing by employees.”

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, the number of samples being tested everyday also continues to grow and in the last 24 hours, 1,90,730 samples were tested. The number of samples tested thus far is 68,07,226, it said.

“For those juggling with self-isolation, we suggest that you keep yourself busy, get engaged in productive work, be physically active, distract from negative emotions and eat right and drink well,” said the Ministry.

It said the number of government labs has been increased to 722 and private labs to 259 (total 981).