Spain’s Health Minister, Carolina Darias, has confirmed that businesses will have the right to decide on mask-wearing policies after this Wednesday, when the new law removing the requirement to wear masks indoors comes into effect.
Speaking in her home city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Darias said that the new law would clarify that health and safety services would be responsible for deciding whether masks should remain compulsory in certain businesses. This is especially likely to apply to businesses where close contact takes place, such as hairdressers and barbers. However, full details will be published in the law later this week, she said.
The Minister also confirmed to EL País newspaper that masks would remain compulsory in chemists’ shops, hospitals and health centres, as well as on public transport “In buses, planes and the interior of boats.”
Darias also expressed hope that people would continue to “use masks responsibly. The culture of care in our society is basic. Our country has proven it can set an example in this respect and I hope it can continue to do so.”
The Canaries, which had some of the highest infection rates among the elderly in Spain just a few weeks ago, is now seeing a reduction in cases among the over-65s, and Lanzarote remains the best-performing of the major Canary Islands, with figures of hospital occupation at minimal risk level.
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