The President of the Government, Pedro Sanchez, explained this Wednesday that the mask will be mandatory outdoors from December 24 , when the BOE is expected to publish the decree approved by the extraordinary Council of Ministers this Thursday.
The head of the Executive has appeared before the press after the Conference of Presidents held this Wednesday in the Senate, which the presidents of the Autonomous Communities have attended telematically. In it, Sanchez has assured that the current situation of the pandemic is different from March 2020 and therefore different measures will be applied at this time.
It has ruled out, therefore, that the same measures at the beginning of the pandemic will be applied. At that time, harsh restrictions were established such as confinement, curfew and movement restrictions.
Thus, it has reiterated that “we have not returned to March of last year” nor to Christmas 2020 since the most widespread variant at this time is different, it causes milder effects and also the percentage of the vaccinated population is much higher.
He has also indicated that he is empathetic to the feeling that many citizens have of fear of returning to the situation of March 2020, but the situation is “different” and the measures of then will not be applied.
More antigen tests
Sanchez has also advanced that “in a few days, probably next week” the antigen tests against Covid for professional use will arrive at pharmacies, which are in the process of being temporarily approved by the Spanish Medicines Agency. and Sanitary Products (AEMPS), dependent on the Ministry of Health.
Sanchez advances that in “a few days” the new antigen tests will arrive at pharmacies
The Chief Executive has highlighted that this regulatory authorization will be done “immediately” due to the lack of ‘stock’ that the vast majority of offices are suffering pharmacy throughout Spain.
The goal, according to Sanchez, is that “in a few days, probably next week,” these diagnostic tests arrive so that there is “greater availability of tests for those who want to buy them.” “It is about expanding the test offer to end the bottleneck that we are having right now,” he pointed out.
The new tests that are going to be approved “are similar to those of self-diagnosis” and have a nasal sample to “facilitate its extraction.” The requirements will be that “they have been validated for authorization in the EU, that it be a nasal sample and also the identification of national manufacturing companies.”
“The AEMPS has already identified the companies that meet these criteriaand these temporary authorizations are already in place. Therefore, I understand the concern, I share it. Our concern is maximum, it is total, from the calm and with the maximum anticipation”, the Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, has put forward this Wednesday during her intervention in the Control Session of the Congress of Deputies.
Likewise, Darias has assured that since The Ministry and the AEMPS have been “in contact with all the parties involved” for “weeks” to “help solve” the problem.”For weeks we have been in contact with the companies of these tests to follow the distribution. The demand has multiplied by more than 1,000″, he justified.
