Covid-19 Pedro Sánchez announces the end of outdoor masks from June 26
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Coronavirus Masks, manual for use (or not) in the EU
The masks will no longer be mandatory in the free spaces as of next Saturday, June 26. This is the announcement with which the leader of the Executive, Pedro Sánchez, has surprised us this Friday. Before that, it must be made official in the extraordinary Council of Ministers to be held on Thursday, June 24. Although it is true that many autonomies were already asking to advance in this sense, the experts ask to define what is understood by "free spaces" or "exteriors".
In the words of Joan Caylà, spokesperson for the Spanish Epidemiology Society, considers that the term "exteriors" encompasses a very broad concept that should be qualified.
"
It is not the same to take a walk in the mountains, with hardly any people, than to walk through the crowded center of Madrid or Barcelona
. Both are outdoor spaces but the risk of transmission is very different."
The decision that Sánchez announces today was already anticipated a few weeks ago by Fernando Simón, director of the
Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies
, who pointed out that it was possible that before July the use of masks abroad was no longer mandatory.
At this point, it is worth remembering the beginning of the pandemic, when Simón assured that it was not necessary for the population to wear masks against the coronavirus.
"It doesn't make any sense," he said.
For his part, Salvador Illa, who at that time was Minister of Health, asked "not to fall into alarmism" and advised against "going with masks on the street."
Despite that statement with which the Government ruled out implanting the indisputable need to wear the mask in Spain,
the autonomies were passing decrees on their own
to make use of them.
Catalonia began.
The Balearic Islands, Extremadura and Aragón followed his example and, progressively, the rest.
The last to do so was the Canary Islands.
In this course of time, the masks went from "not making any sense" to "being mandatory", not without first having some 'stops' of confusion: recommended only for sick patients or with symptoms or mandatory only for public transport. The mask mess has a long history in a year and a half of pandemic.
And now, Simón has once again anticipated the announcement about the masks that Pedro Sánchez made this Friday.
But no, the question is not so simple, experts say.
It is convenient to take into account what outdoor spaces we are talking about.
"
As long as you can maintain a distance of more than two meters with other people, it would be acceptable not to use the mask
. But I think that whenever there is a concentration of people you have to continue using it," argues Caylà, who emphasizes that France and Andorra have modified their rules in that sense.
A factor that must also be taken into account, adds the specialist, "is the vaccination status. In the US, for example, people with a full vaccination schedule can do without a mask outdoors."
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