Masks in healthcare settings will no longer be mandatory and will be recommended

The Interterritorial Health Council has supported this Friday the definitive withdrawal of the mandatory use of masks in health centers, hospitals, pharmacies and other social health centers, and will only be maintained in hospital areas with critical patients, so its widespread use ends, but it is mainly recommended when there are symptoms of respiratory infection.

This has been confirmed to EFE by sources from the Interterritorial Council, which this afternoon brought together the Minister of Health, José Miñones, with the regional ministers of the sector to agree on a measure exposed months ago by several communities, including Madrid, which since April had been asking to eliminate the mask inside hospitals, pharmacies and day centers.

This eliminates a rule that was mandatory in health and social health settings since December 2020, so Spain says goodbye to more than 1,140 days of mandatory mask use in some area, pending the Council of Ministers to approve, presumably next week, the royal decree that will include the new regulation.

The Ministry of Health and the communities indicate that the mandatory nature will be maintained in hospital settings with critical and vulnerable patients, 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 the places where they are still mandatory - health, social health centers and pharmacies - and concluded: "We are closer to it being a recommended use rather than mandatory."

Spain ended the mandatory mask on public transport last February at a time when the records of covid-19, like 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 the mask was "one step further", in the words of Miñones' predecessor, Carolina Darias, in the response that Spain was giving to the epidemiological situation throughout the pandemic.

It was thus withdrawn in trains, planes, buses or subways, where they were mandatory since May 4, 2020, as well as health establishments such as orthopedics, opticians and hearing aid centers, in which it remained mandatory in April last year when they were removed from interiors. EFE