Spain to Mandate Outdoor Face Masks to Stem Omicron Spread

(Bloomberg) -- Spain will reintroduce mandatory face masks outdoors and speed up booster shots, ruling out lockdowns for now, as the highly contagious omicron variant sweeps across Europe. 

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced the measures after an extraordinary meeting with the heads of regional governments. The cabinet will meet on Thursday to approve the measures via a decree. 

“We fear returning to that situation of March 2020, but the situation today is different, and therefore we will not apply the same measures,” Sanchez said in a press briefing. In March last year, his government imposed tough movement curbs nationwide.

“We are better prepared to resist the onslaught of Covid-19,” Sanchez added. 

The government set deadlines to increase the coverage of booster shots across different age groups, and will deploy troops to help with the inoculation drive. It plans to hand out more funds for regions to hire health-care workers, improve their working conditions and bring back retired personnel in an effort to beef up hospital staff.  

Balancing Act

The latest wave of the virus poses a difficult challenge for Sanchez. Record infections have raised pressure on him to call for bolder measures, which in turn could dampen an already feeble recovery in the euro zone’s fourth-largest economy. 

Catalonia has already announced it will impose a curfew, shut night clubs, limit gatherings and restaurant occupancy to arrest a surge in cases in the region where Barcelona is located.  

In contrast, authorities in the Madrid region, the country’s third most populated, have ruled out any new measures despite the number of cases tripling on Tuesday. The mayor of the capital tweeted on Tuesday that he had tested positive.  

Lockdowns, travel bans and curfews pushed the Spanish economy to its worst contraction on record in 2020, the deepest in the euro zone. 

The rapid spread of omicron across Europe has already hit activity in the fourth quarter by keeping foreign visitors away from a country that is highly reliant on tourism, according to the Bank of Spain. 

Authorities from Holland to Portugal and Sweden have ordered tighter movement restrictions to avert a collapse of their public healthcare systems. 

In Spain, infections hit a new daily record on Tuesday and hospitalizations have steadily climbed to 7,634 patients. Still, intensive care unit occupation rate has been lower than in previous waves with more than 90% of the population above 12 years old fully inoculated. 

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