Madrid (EFE) Its widespread use is ending, but it is recommended mainly when there are symptoms of a respiratory infection.
This has been confirmed to EFE by sources from the Interterritorial Council, which has met this afternoon the Minister of Health, José Miñones, with the regional councilors of the branch to agree on a measure exposed months ago by several communities, including Madrid, which since April called for eliminating the mask inside hospitals, pharmacies and day centers.
Thus, a rule that was mandatory in the health and social health fields since December 2020 disappears, for which reason Spain dismisses more than 1,140 days of mandatory use of the mask in some field, waiting for the Council of Ministers to approve, foreseeably next week, the royal decree that will include the new regulation.
Health and the communities aim to maintain the obligation in critical and vulnerable hospital settings, that is, in areas such as operating rooms, intensive care units and where there are immunocompromised patients.
The minister himself announced last week that the idea was to remove the masks in places that are still mandatory – health centers, social health centers and pharmacies – and settled: “We are closer to it being a recommended rather than mandatory use.”
End of masks on public transport in February
Last February, Spain put an end to the mandatory mask on public transport at a time when the covid-19 records, as now, were close to their lowest figures, although it will continue to be advisable in these places for vulnerable people or in the presence of symptoms of respiratory infection.
The reform of the royal decree of April 2022 that regulates the use of face masks was “one more step”, in the words of Miñones’s predecessor, Carolina Darias, in the response that Spain was giving to the epidemiological situation throughout the pandemic.
It was thus withdrawn on trains, planes, buses or subways, where they were imperative since May 4, 2020, as well as health establishments such as orthopedics, opticians and audioprosthesis centers, where it remained mandatory in April last year when they removed interiors.
