Until now, the Alert Report of the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System had recommended that the use of masks be mandatory on public transport until the end of the acute respiratory infection season, approximately in March, and also awaiting information on the evolution of the COVID-19 outbreak in China, but face masks could cease to be mandatory in a “very short” period of time: “I don’t know if next week or the following, it will will withdraw the mandatory use of the mask ”, Fernando Simón announced yesterday. Today, Carolina Darias, Minister of Health, has announced that it will be on February 7 when the Council of Ministers will approve the end of its compulsory use of public means of transport, so that, foreseeably, the measure would come into force the next day.
In fact, the government spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, has announced that the Executive is studying the effects of the measures to control the access of travelers from China to make the decision to withdraw the obligation to wear a mask on public transport, so that it will no longer be mandatory “immediately” on public transport, although it will continue to be so in health centers or pharmacies.
In April of last year, the Government approved the Royal Decree by which the use of masks indoors was no longer mandatory, although the measure was maintained in places where it was considered necessary due to the accumulation of people or the presence of a vulnerable population. such as medical and care centers (hospitals and health centers, nursing homes…), as well as public transport.
The epidemiological situation of COVID in Spain is stable
For weeks now, experts from the Alert Panel have been debating the advisability of bringing forward the end of mandatory masks on public transport and one of the weighty arguments in favor of this is that the epidemiological situation in Spain has been stable for months and there has not been any peak incidence since the last wave, last summer. Now, the technicians have also been able to verify that this situation has continued after Christmas, since hospital admissions have not increased after the holidays.
“When we have symptoms we should use it (the mask) responsibly, and if we are at risk or vulnerable groups too”
To this we must add that the two possible threats posed by SARS-CoV-2 infections in China and the United States are disappearing. The peak of infections has been exceeded in China without variants other than those already circulating in Europe having been detected, while in the United States, where a more contagious sub-variant of omicron has circulated than the previous ones –XBB.1.5 or Kraken–, infections have decreased in recent weeks.
Salvador Peiró, epidemiologist and researcher in the Area of Research in Health Services and Pharmacoepidemiology of the Foundation for the promotion of health and biomedical research in the Valencian Community (FISABIO), gave his opinion on the matter a week ago in statements to SMC Spain : “Spain has a highly vaccinated and highly infected population, and it is foreseeable that the incidence of covid-19 will remain stable in the coming months, showing a certain level of transmission (which could increase if new variants displace the current ones) but with limited impact on hospitalization and ICUs. In fact, after the surge last summer, all the covid monitoring parameters appear to be very stable, without being particularly affected by the interactions at Christmas and New Year’s Eve (up to 6 million people spent New Year’s Eve in entertainment venues )”.
“In this context, and for quite a few weeks, it was not expected that the use of masks exclusively on public transport would have a significant impact on transmission or hospitalization, so it was reasonable to withdraw this restriction, which otherwise already it had been done in most European countries”. “Since the Ministry created great concern with the outbreak in China, even to adopt some control measures in airports, it was also expected that they would show some consistency by prolonging the mandatory nature of masks (it would have made little sense to take contradictory measures at the same time). It can be assumed that the announcement of the withdrawal of this measure in Germany, the only one of the large EU countries that still maintained it, left Spain in an uncomfortable situation, especially since a very touristy country has no interest in transmitting the impression that the situation in Spain requires measures that do not exist in the rest of Europe”.
“For the rest, the use of masks in health centers should be maintained, and also the recommendation that people with respiratory symptoms use the mask when they are with other people (especially when they are with the elderly or with underlying diseases),” he concludes.
Fernando Simón, for his part, has qualified that “the message is not that the mask is going to be removed, but that now the population has to be much more responsible.” “When we have symptoms we should use it responsibly, and if we are at risk or vulnerable groups too. We must understand that our health somehow affects that of others, especially when there is an infectious disease involved, ”he added.
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