Wearing masks is to be obligatory again in Spain’s hospitals and other healthcare facilities from today, the Spanish Ministry of Health said on Monday as the nation faces an influenza outbreak.
The decree was announced after a meeting between the ministry and representatives of the nation’s regions, who control their own health systems.
Spain, which was hit hard by the first wave of COVID-19 in 2020, has been considering the move for several days, but a final decision was held up by disagreements among its regions.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Since the pandemic, we have learnt,” Spanish Minister of Health Monica Garcia said after the meeting. “We have thought hard about the issue of the mask to protect above all health centers and hospitals, to protect patients as much as [healthcare] professionals.”
The wearing of masks is “a measure that is effective, common sense, that is backed by scientific evidence and that is welcomed by the general population,” she added.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has recommended that people on the continent stay at home if they feel sick, and consider wearing masks in crowds or healthcare settings, with flu spreading as it typically does this time of year, but hitting some nations harder than others.
It said Europeans should follow national guidelines on vaccinating vulnerable groups.
Flu is now circulating at higher levels than other common respiratory pathogens, including the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, it said.
Spain was among the last European nations to drop requirements to wear masks following the COVID-19 pandemic, with people told to wear them on public transport until February last year, and in health centers and pharmacies until July.
In Italy, people suffering from flu-like illnesses, which include both flu and COVID-19, reached a record high in the final two weeks of last year, data issued by the issued by National Health Institute (ISS) showed.
The incidence in Italy was 17.5 cases per 1,000 people in the 52nd week and 17.7 cases per 1,000 people the previous week.
ISS experts said the rise could be blamed on people no longer wearing masks and fewer people seeking vaccinations so far this season. So far there has been no sign that the Italian government is considering reintroducing mask mandates.
Portuguese Minister of Health Manuel Pizarro on Monday said there is no reason for a generalized recommendation regarding mask use, while acknowledging that the nation was experiencing a flu epidemic that had increased waiting times in hospital emergency wards to more than 10 hours.
In intensive care units, the proportion of influenza cases reached a record 17 percent in the last week of last year, the Portuguese Ministry of Health said.
Nations in other parts of the world are also adopting mask usage once more. Hospitals in at least four US states have reinstated mask mandates amid a rise in cases of COVID-19, seasonal flu and other respiratory illnesses.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS