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ARCHIVED - Mask wearing to be made mandatory outdoors in Spain
Authorities in Spain have made a plan to accelerate vaccinations and support the hospitals
Following a meeting between the president of the Spanish government and the leaders of all the autonomous communities on Wednesday December 22, Pedro Sánchez has announced that mask-wearing will once more be mandatory outdoors, something which has not been in place since June.
The measure will be approved tomorrow in an extraordinary Council of Ministers, according to government sources, when further details will be released.
However, the President has decided against more extreme measures such as closing hospitality venues or implementing capacity and opening hour restrictions before Christmas. He has also refused the request of Catalonia to establish a night-time curfew.
Vaccination strategy
The President has proposed accelerating the vaccination campaign with the reinforcement of the Armed Forces, as well as making use of the Military Health Network’s hospitals to administer the Covid jabs.
Mr Sánchez has appealed to the regional leaders to push the vaccination process and has thus set the following objectives: that 80% of the population between 60 and 69 years old is vaccinated with the third dose before the end of the year; that 80% of those between 50 and 59 years old are given the booster in the week beginning January 24 and that 80% between 40 and 49 years have the booster dose in the first week of March.
In addition, he wants 70% of children aged between 5 and 11 to have received their first dose by February 7 and 70% to be double jabbed by the week of April 19.
Health care support
Given the saturation levels in primary care centres in some communities, a reinforcement of Human Resources is also proposed with the hiring of retired and pre-retired health personnel and the ability to hire professionals with a specialist degree obtained in non-member states of the European Union.
This move is part of a plan to increase the number of health professionals in Spain and improve their working conditions, reducing temporary work below 8% at a cost of 292 million euros to the state coffers from January 1.
Antigen test shortage
Mr Sánchez has confirmed that temporary authorisation will be granted to allow the sale of professional grade rapid antigen tests in pharmacies to make up for the national shortage.
The President also reiterated that fully vaccinated close contacts of people who have tested positive will no longer have to quarantine and that, as of February 1, Covid passports will have an expiration date of nine months from the date of the second coronavirus vaccine.
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