- If more and more cities have made the wearing of a mask compulsory outdoors, many doctors want the measure to be extended as quickly as possible to all enclosed public places, and in particular in companies.
- While France is experiencing a rebound in the coronavirus epidemic, companies, where the wearing of masks is governed by labor law, represent nearly a quarter of new clusters.
- This Tuesday, the Minister of Labor will receive the social partners and at the end of this meeting, the government could decide to make the wearing of a mask compulsory in companies.
School starts again soon. If millions of children are getting ready to go back to school in a fortnight, for millions of employees, the holidays are already over and it is the path to work that must be resumed. Meanwhile, the coronavirus has not taken a vacation and is circulating more beautifully in France, where up to more than 3,000 new cases of Covid-19 have been detected daily in recent days.
Many caregivers fear a second wave in the coming weeks and sign a column published in Liberation calling for making the wearing of a mask compulsory in all closed public places, and in particular in companies, where the virus is actively circulating.
Almost a quarter of new contaminations at work
If the mask has been mandatory outdoors for a few days in many cities, it has been mandatory for several weeks now in many closed public places. Public transport, shops, restaurants (when moving inside the establishment) are thus accessible on condition of wearing a mask. Ditto in health establishments, where staff are obviously subject to wearing a mandatory mask. As well as visitors who visit their relatives hospitalized or residing in nursing homes.
On the other hand, in companies, it is more flexible. To date, the national deconfinement protocol for companies, drawn up by the Ministry of Labor, provides that wearing a mask is only compulsory in the workplace if a physical distance of at least one meter between employees cannot be respected. A measure with visibly limited effectiveness since today, in the heart of summer, nearly a quarter of new contaminations (24%) took place in the workplace. In its latest bulletin published on August 13, Public Health France recalls that "among the 746 outbreaks of contamination" reported on August 11, 182 of these clusters appeared in companies. It is the “first place of clusters while it is in the middle of August, alarms the epidemiologist Martin Blachier with L'Obs . Currently, individuals can stay in an open space for eight hours without a mask, so if there is a sick person, they can aerolize the entire space and infect everyone ”.
For Dr Jérôme Marty, general practitioner and president of the French Union for Free Medicine (UFML) and signatory of the forum, "it is imperative to make the wearing of a mask compulsory in all enclosed public places, in particular companies. In the coming days, many employees will massively return to work, worries Dr. Marty. However, the aerosol cloud and the difficulty of maintaining a distance between employees increase the risk of massive contamination. All this makes companies one of the biggest contaminations factors if the mask is not very quickly made compulsory there, ”he told 20 Minutes .
A new health protocol for companies
Fears heard by the government, which should announce a new health protocol for companies and could decide to make the mask mandatory. The government thus wants to modify, "by the end of August", the health rules to contain the coronavirus in companies, in particular via the "compulsory wearing of a mask" in certain situations, indicated Sunday the Minister of Labor, Elisabeth Borne, who should receive the unions.
"We will present to the social partners on Tuesday the first changes that we propose to introduce", she announced, adding that these decisions will have to be taken "in the coming days, so that the new rules can be applied from time to time. here at the end of August ”.
Everyone must do their utmost to prevent the spread of the epidemic.
On Tuesday we will discuss with the social partners a strengthening of health standards in companies, to guarantee health at work and continuity of economic activity.
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"If the wearing of a mask should be compulsory [in business] to protect against health risks, it is up to the government to prescribe these public order measures (...), to tell us under what circumstances it should be worn", reacted Monday Yves Veyrier, secretary general of the FO union, on France 2. For the unionist, also arises "the question of the cost of taking charge of the masks: there is work, transport: how many masks will be needed to carry it, who will be in charge of it? Because it cannot be the responsibility of the employee, ”he said.
Act, so that "there is not this second wave of hospitality"
Among the measures that should be announced by the government, "the compulsory wearing of a mask" will be recommended "in meeting rooms where there is no natural ventilation (and) circulation spaces", but not necessarily in individual offices, where "it is probably not necessary", added the Minister of Labor. The physical distance meter between employees should be maintained, as should teleworking, the use of which should remain strongly recommended by the government. Elisabeth Borne also intends to seize the High Council of Public Health (HCSP) on the case of "open spaces" and the effectiveness of plexiglass windows to protect employees. The body, responsible for guiding the government, also pronounced this weekend for the “systematic” wearing of a mask in “all public and private closed places”.
"If these measures are taken, that the wearing of a mask [is made compulsory] in open spaces and business meeting rooms, it is very reasonable," commented on Monday Professor Robert Cohen, pediatric infectious disease specialist, on franceinfo. We know that it is closed environments that promote the circulation of the virus, he insists. So, when there are several in the same room, it is safer to wear a mask to protect yourself against it, he continues, stressing the importance of ventilating closed rooms. (…) We are today in a phase of active contamination, with not yet little impact on hospitalizations. And it is precisely by imposing these measures that we will be able to ensure that there is not this second wave of hospitality that must be avoided at all costs today ”. A position shared by Professor Gilles Pialoux, head of the infectious diseases department at Tenon hospital in Paris: “I am in favor of putting the mask on everywhere, because we need a simple message. We need a culture of the mask, a culture of barrier measures, he echoed Monday on France Inter. We missed this message of clarity in the first wave ”.
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Coronavirus: Masks, teleworking, distancing ... The government must announce new business rules by the end of August
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