Masks indoors 'recommended' but not compulsory; health ministry urges public to get third jab

NATIONAL health authorities in Spain have once again recommended wearing a mask in indoor areas, but have not made this compulsory as yet.

Minister Carolina Darías says an increase in Covid cases means it is 'strongly advisable' to pop a mask on before entering shops, banks, post offices and public-sector offices, as it has already been seen that doing so helps reduce viral contagion.

Regional governments in Madrid, Catalunya and the centre-northern Castilla y León had already made these recommendations to residents ahead of Sra Darías' announcement.

At present, masks are only compulsory on public transport or in healthcare settings such as hospitals, GP surgeries, care homes, pharmacies, fertility clinics, and similar, whilst individual workplaces have been given authority to decide for themselves whether to require their staff to do so.

Outside of healthcare environments, public-facing employees have generally not been obliged to wear masks at work, although many choose to do so, and a significant minority of residents continue to put a mask on when entering a shop.

In general, public health experts do not believe there is any need to take further measures, much less apply restrictions of the type seen throughout practically the whole of 2020 and 2021.

One of the main reasons for the rising number of Covid cases is that the Omicron strain and its variants is much more contagious than its predecessors – although Sra Darías' department explains that it is generally less serious.

People testing positive, and being admitted to hospital, are increasing, but the latter rarely needs to be moved to intensive care and there is far less overall danger to life.

Over half of those testing positive in the past week are aged over 60 – an estimated 1% of the population of this age group is infected – although the severity, and which exact ages are most affected, have not been detailed.

Clearly, a healthy 60-something catching Covid is less worrying than a frail 90-something, or a person of any age who has pre-existing medical conditions that could be gravely aggravated by a respiratory infection.

As yet, any relation between this and the length of time since the vaccine roll-out has not been studied – these were mostly administered in descending age order, meaning it would now be over a year and up to 18 months since the 60-plus population had their second doses.

Third doses were approved for all adults at the end of 2021, and were given out in the same order as the first and second jabs, meaning everyone will have been able to get a booster by now if they wanted to.

That said, unlike the first two doses, residents were not summoned individually by text message for specific appointments, so some may not have realised they could have their booster.

Sra Darías has urged anyone who has only had two – or, in the case of those who had the single-dose Janssen formula, one – to contact their local health centre as soon as they can to find out how to get dose number three.

Covid cases dropped dramatically after the first two doses, as did the severity of those who became infected.

Fourth doses were being administered to everyone aged over 80 until two months ago, when the government opted to halt the process and wait for the release of new formulae adapted to protect against the newer Omicron variants.

Once these are available – probably by early autumn – the dose-four roll-out will restart, but for the whole population, and again in descending age order.