Spain to lift outdoor mandatory mask rule on June 26, says PM Pedro Sanchez

Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez on Thursday announced that the legal requirement to wear a mask outdoors will no longer be effective from Saturday (June 26), Spanish newspaper El Pais reported. At a business event, also attended by South Korean President Moon Jae-in who is on a state visit to Spain, Sanchez announced that this would be last weekend when people will be required to wear the face masks outdoors. Sanchez told reporters that the COVID-19 rule, first introduced in early May 2020 during the pandemic’s first wave, will now be scrapped at a special cabinet meeting scheduled for the coming Thursday. 

Furthermore, he added, that there have been plans in the pipeline for over a month, but the government has finally been able to decide on a specific date to end the mask advisory. The Spanish PM cited a significant decline in the new cases of the novel coronavirus, adding that nearly 50 percent of the Spanish population will have at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in few weeks. He told reporters that the country’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign has progressed at a “cruising speed,” and as many as 15 million people will have been vaccinated in just a matter of a few days.

“This will be the last weekend we wear masks outdoors as from June 26 we won’t have to wear masks in outdoor public spaces anymore,” said the Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez at the press conference.

In a speech that he delivered in Barcelona, the Socialist Party (PSOE) leader furthermore added, “Our streets, our faces, will start to regain their normal appearance in the coming days.” Sanchez said that the decision was reached with the help of his chief epidemiologist Fernando Simón who had earlier said that the outdoor masks rule may be removed around mid-May. Although, this could not be implemented due to the surge in infections, nationwide.

France scraps outdoor mask rule 

Spain's decision to lift the outdoor mask advisory comes just days after France and Germany made a similar announcement. France, earlier yesterday, announced that it was ending the mandatory mask protocol, and also removing the night curfew in an effort to relax some of the coronavirus restrictions. At a news conference, Prime Minister Jean Castex said that France’s COVID-19 curfew would be lifted on Sunday, approximately 10 days earlier than expected. This was made possible as France registered only 3,900 confirmed cases of coronavirus cases per day, which slumped from the previously reported 35,000 cases per day during the March and April peak, last year.