The law of urgent prevention, containment and coordination measures to face the health crisis caused by the Coronavirus was approved last Thursday by the Plenary of Congress, after the green light of the Senate, where an amendment was introduced -of the PSOE- that it established the mandatory nature of the mask even while maintaining the safety distance.

The text that reached the Senate and that was not previously modified in Congress stated that people over six years of age are obliged to use masks in different cases.

Specifically, “on public roads, in open air spaces and in any closed space for public use or that is open to the public, provided that it is not possible to guarantee the maintenance of an interpersonal safety distance of at least 1, 5 meters”.

With the amendment introduced in the Senate, the final part of the wording of the text regarding the safety distance was deleted, making the use of the mask mandatory even if that distance of 1.5 meters can be maintained.

The motivation for the amendment argued that “with the recent evidence on the transmission of SARS-CoV 2 by aerosols, the use of masks cannot be made dependent on not being able to guarantee the distance of 1.5 meters”.

“On public roads, in outdoor spaces and in any closed space for public use or that is open to the public”, indicates the final wording of the law published in the BOE.

The law has not undergone modification with respect to the initial text regarding the use of masks in means of air, sea, bus, or rail transport, as well as in complementary public and private passenger transport in vehicles with up to nine seats , including the driver, if the occupants of the tourism vehicles are not living together.

Yes, it is modified in the case of the decks and exterior spaces of ships and boats, where the use of the mask becomes mandatory, something that already included the amendment approved in the Senate and ratified, along with the rest of the law. , by Congress last week.

The obligation in all the above cases is not applicable to people who have some type of illness or respiratory difficulty that may be aggravated by the use of the mask or who, due to their situation of disability or dependency, do not have the autonomy to remove it, or they present behavioral alterations that make their use unviable.

Nor will it be enforceable “in the case of individual outdoor sport, or in cases of force majeure or situation of necessity or when, due to the very nature of the activities, the use of the mask is incompatible, in accordance with the indications of the health authorities ”.

*Update 01.04.2021

Legal Loophole

The Health Minister Patricia Gómez, after meeting with her counterparts in the Interterritorial Council, has announced that the Balearic Islands will keep the current restrictions. To this end, government lawyers looked for a legal loophole in the text that they could grasp and find.

“As indicated by the sanitary authorities.” It is part of a law approved by Congress that the Balearic Islands adhere to in order not to be forced to wear a mask in public places if social safety distance is respected. “The community legal service understands that our laws have not been violated”, Gomez explained yesterday.

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