For several weeks now, even before all this started, there was talk about masks up, masks down, and even today it is still a fairly recurring topic in every conversation we have these days.
Gone is the memory of when in the early days of the alarm or even before it, we went to the supermarket and found that there were already people with their masks on...
Exaggerated, some thought, others thought "look at the people with paranoia", "scared people", etc....
There were many opinions from one side and the other, but it was already clear that masks were becoming scarce everywhere.
Then suddenly we went from the message of calm, everything is fine, we are in a containment phase, there is no need to be alarmed, until suddenly the government shouted ALARM ALARM, and we found ourselves immersed in an unprecedented health crisis.
There were no masks anymore, there hadn't been for a while, and the worst thing is that there weren't any for us, but neither were there any for the healthcare workers, there simply weren't any masks or protective equipment for the healthcare workers, it seemed that everything had started from one day to the next and it caught us and the government off guard, it seems.
Right at that moment the mask race began, everyone is trying to get them, the government first, we are not going to enter into the debate of whether they should have done it much earlier or not, that is something that each one must assess personally according to their criteria, I have mine quite clear.
But there are obvious things in this mask issue, the best part is the solidarity that our people have, hundreds of people start sewing and trying to make solidarity masks and distribute them among those who want them.
Another good thing is the humor of this country in everything related to masks, something is clear if we take a look at the networks about jokes, about the price, use, materials, etc.
In the end, we are capable of laughing at anything, but one thing is to laugh and another is not to take the issue of masks seriously, or rather the problem that there are no masks even for our healthcare workers or that the ones they distributed last week to our healthcare workers were defective and therefore they have been working for a week with masks and it was really as if they had none.
Thousands of healthcare professionals are infected, first due to lack of material and now perhaps many more due to the use of these defective masks or not, as I said before, it is better that everyone thinks what they want, I only expose some data and press headlines.
Now let's continue talking about the masks, those that they don't force you to wear but they recommend that you wear them.
Those same ones that are not found but if you find them they sell them to you much more expensive although that does not mean that our pharmacies of a lifetime are scamming us but that the market price is also that.
The same ones that they say now that they sell them to you in the pharmacy but with your health card, yes, only one per person and card every 3 days.
That is, it means that every 3 days you must go out, go to the pharmacy to buy a single-use mask, but that according to an invented and illogical criterion, according to the Ministry of Health, if the average use is 8 hours a day, it has to last us 3 days, something illogical since they are single-use, or perhaps if we work half-time we can use it for 6 days, and to all this I must add that at the same time that they ask us to go out as little as possible and now it turns out that to buy the masks we must go out every 3 days.
In addition, the government says that it is going to intervene in the market to control its price, and this is where a doubt arises for me,
Should a government really intervene in the market or should it guarantee the supply of them so that the price does not rise?
Perhaps the government instead of intervening in the market to regulate the price could send each of us a quota of masks to our homes or make them available to us in pharmacies but free of charge or at least a quota once and not one unit every 3 days.
Moreover, I am writing this as a proposal addressed in my case, to the Tías City Council, but I also want this proposal to be accepted by the rest of the city councils on the island, as they are the administrations closest to the citizens, although the Cabildo de Lanzarote can also make it its own, as the main administration of the island.
Perhaps instead of distributing them in public transport, in roundabouts, in the LIDL parking lot or in other places, they could do the same as other city councils in Spain are doing, for example the city council of Pozuelo, with less than 90000 inhabitants and also many other municipalities in Spain that have decided to do a mail drop where they will deliver, they could or rather should send us a quota of masks to our homes in a home distribution of the same.