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The Government wants to remove the masks indoors before Easter
The withdrawal of the obligation to wear the mask in closed spaces does not appear formally on the agenda of the Interterritorial Council that will meet again this Wednesday, this time in Toledo, but the debate on when will the last great sign disappear of the pandemic will fly over a meeting before which the communities opt overwhelmingly in favor of waiting to the proposal of the technicians of the Warning Committee, who propose a gradual withdrawal and, above all, once the Holy Week. Faced with this criterion, the Government would like it to be before these first vacations of the year, as the Community of Madrid, Catalonia and the Canary Islands also believe, in a minority.
The debate about before or after Easter began to arise last week, when the director of the Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies (CCAES), Fernando Simonasked the members of the Alerts Panel if they saw a possible remove the obligation to wear a mask also indoors before the start of Holy Week and they answered emphatically no. Instead, his proposal indicates that shouldn’t be until later of these first holidays of the year.
Autonomous sources point out that at the moment it is unknown if the Government will follow this recommendation and it will wait or if it will decide to suppress them for Holy Thursday, since this is a decision of the exclusive competence of the central Executive. However, before the Interterritorial Council this Wednesday, Andalusia, Galicia, Navarra, Extremadura, the Basque Country, the Valencian Community, Murcia or the Balearic Islands, have already publicly opted to wait to see what the technicians say, who bet on waiting until after Easter. On the contrary, the Community of Madrid, Catalonia or the Canary Islands are committed to the fact that masks in closed spaces can be removed before the holidays begin.
“From the Andalusian Government we are in favor of at least for the next few months or month and a half let’s keep the mask indoors because there are going to be events that generate huge concentrations of people, such as Holy Week, the April Fair in Seville or the different pilgrimages, or other types of cultural, social or religious events” that “can facilitate the contagion and therefore that we have a rebound”, pointed out this Monday the president of Andalusia, Juanma Moreno.
If not as long as a month and a half, the Galician government asks to wait “at least fifteen days”, to give time to know the effect of the elimination of the obligation to remain isolated at home with mild or asymptomatic Covid.
This Tuesday, the Minister of Health of Navarra, Santos Indurain, refused to “suddenly open” the debate on masks to say that “almost practically the only measure we have” against Covid is suspended. “Our idea is progressiveness and the ideal moment, which is what everyone expects, we we think that the ideal would be after Easterbecause at Easter there is a very high level of social interaction and in a very short time”, he added.
“The presentation of alerts at the national level has been pronounced and He has said that he does not agree that it be removed, at least, until Easter is over. That has been the proposal”, indicated this Monday the counselor of Murcia, Juan Jose Pedreño. Also the counselor of Extremadura, Jose Maria Vergeles, bet on do not run “to excess” and stick to what is determined by the Alerts Report, that is, after Easter.
From the Basque Country, your adviser, Gotzone Sagardui, He also appealed to the recommendation of the Public Health experts, who have not yet officially presented their proposal. “It’s not a question of being a supporter or not, it’s about know first what is the proposal, what is the recommendation of the experts who carry out daily and exhaustive monitoring of the evolution of the pandemic of the opportunity of measures such as the use of the mask, but not only in the Basque Country or in the State environment, but in the world environment”, he pointed out.
Before Easter
On the contrary -and unusually aligned with the Government- in the Madrid’s community remember what they wear weeks asking that you can be without a mask in closed spaces, except in hospitals, in social health centers and on public transport.
Catalonia, which began the crusade more than a month ago to be able to remove them at least from the classrooms, will also “press” now so that the mask goes down in history, in general, before Easter, according to its Minister of Health, Joseph Maria Argimon.
As well Canary Islands It is committed to eliminating them next week – that is, before Easter – except in the situations that Madrid also describes.
Slightly rising AI and XE variant
The removal of the mask indoors is a decision that corresponds to the Government, although the president, Pedro Sanchez, He assured that he would consult with experts and with the communities. One of the opportunities could be this Wednesday, in a meeting with an extensive agenda but in which two traditional points of the pandemic, analysis of the epidemiological situation and vaccination against Covid. On this last issue, this Tuesday there was a meeting of the Public Health Commission, which concluded by calling on
“the importance of completing vaccination guidelinesn, both in the pediatric population and in booster doses”.
This conversation will take place right after the change in pandemic surveillance, which is reflected in a new way of offering data twice a week -daily frequency was left behind weeks ago-. Since last Friday, the accumulated incidence is counted only among those over 60 years of age and the report is more exhaustive on the occupation of hospitals and ICUs and deaths. As for the infections, the data for this Tuesday showed an incidence at 14 days of 462 among those over 60, three more than in the previous report, last Friday. In this regard, the Public Health Commission confirmed on Tuesday the “widespread stabilization” of the pandemic in all communities.
Also after the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of a new variant, named XEa mixture of Omicron and its ‘stealthy’ variant, which could be more contagious than the two of them together.
Pandemic Research
Also within the Covid issues, Darias will inform the directors of the “advances” in the so-called “performance evaluation of the National Health System against the Covid-19 pandemic”, the name given to the response that the Government gave to the request that, back in the summer of 2020, it made in the scientific journal The Lancet about twenty specialists in Spanish Public Health and Epidemiology, so that there would be a independent investigation of why Spain was among the countries most affected by the coronavirus.
Since then, the process has advanced very slowly. Until October 2020 the Government did not agree to make this evaluation through some experts that the Ministry and communities did not agree until September of last year. So, Darias asked to let them work. Six months later, the Interterritorial Council you will hear some – or all – of their conclusions.
Off the Covid agendathe Interterritorial Health Council this Wednesday will approve the work plan for the Digital Transformation of the Primary Care and the criteria to select the projects for it and will give the green light to an agreement to create within it a specific commission “against violence against children and adolescents”.