The Public Health Commission is opening a study this afternoon for a proposal to dispense with the use of the mask in some public spaces after a year and a half of the pandemic. According to reports, this body brings together the general directors of the Ministry of Health and the representatives from all regions of Spain, to find a way to end the obligation of wearing masks, which would be limited only to the outside, and exclusively at the times and in places which distancing could be maintained for security of people who are not living together or do not belong to the same bubble group.
The need to open this debate, when Spain as a whole is already approaching an IA14 of 100 and already has more than a quarter of the population fully immunized, has been defended in recent days by a large part of the autonomous communities, such as Catalonia, the Valencian Community, Murcia, Castilla-La Mancha, Galicia, Madrid, Castilla y León, Aragon and the Balearic Islands.
But the abolition of the use of masks has been rejected for the moment by other territories such as the Basque Country, Navarra, Extremadura or Andalusia that consider it too hasty and that, in general, advocate considering lifting the ban when the incidence over 14 days falls below 50 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, the bar that marks an area of low risk of infection.
Be that as it may, the total or partial abolition of the obligation to wear them will entail a regulatory change, according to what the jurists have made known to the commission. The law known as the 'new normality' (Law 2/2021 of urgent measures of prevention, containment and coordination to face the health crisis caused by Covid) of last March, establishes that the mask must be worn at all times and situations, as long as you are in a public space and even if there is a safety distance.
This regulation was the one that the communities and Healthcare agreed in the Inter-territorial Council to "make flexible" (in practice, partially breach) to allow dispensing with the mask on beaches, around swimming pools when sunbathing and without moving.
The director of the Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies (CCAES), Fernando Simón, was reluctant yesterday (Monday) to give a possible date for the removal of the obligation of masks, especially because among the population under 35 years of age, the age group least vaccinated, infections have stabilized or are even on the rise. However, Simón has indicated previously that it could take place in June or July.
