The Minister of Health, Manel Balcells, has reported through the social network X that the use of a mask will be mandatory to go to health centers in Catalonia. Balcells has specified that the measure is implemented due to the "increase in respiratory viruses." Sources from the department explain to La Vanguardia that although they are finalizing the resolution, the idea is that the measure will be applied starting today. These same sources specify that the obligation is for hospitals, CAPs and social health centers. In the residences it is "advised", also "for people at risk or if a citizen has symptoms." Pharmacies, for the moment, are exempt from the mandatory use of masks.
Salut predicts that the peak of cases of respiratory diseases will be reached in Catalonia between next Sunday and Monday, after the Three Kings' holiday, and that next week the level of activity in emergency services for this reason will continue to be high.
This is what the director of the National Emergency Plan of Catalonia (PLANUC), Xavier Jiménez Fàbrega, explained in statements to EFE, who pointed out that we must be cautious due to the incidence levels of both flu and covid, although they are lower than those of other winters.
The Valencian Community has also made the use of masks mandatory in hospital centers today. The Ministry of Health has sent to the community health departments an instruction from the General Directorate of Public Health that establishes the mandatory nature of its use in health and social health centers as a preventive measure against the resurgence of respiratory virus infection.
The Region of Murcia has just announced that it is also making its use mandatory in health centers starting tomorrow while this epidemic lasts, according to regional sources.
A situation that is widespread throughout Spain since the incidence of flu continues to clearly rise and is expected to continue growing until at least the end of next week.
Given this panorama, the Ministry of Health has convened the autonomous communities in the Interterritorial Council on Monday to evaluate the situation of this triple epidemic and, in this framework, it will propose the mandatory use of the mask in health centers (health centers and hospitals) and in nursing homes. This measure would be temporary and while the respiratory virus epidemic lasts.
This has just been indicated by Minister Mónica García, who recalls, however, that the powers lie with the autonomous communities and that it is they, as Valencia and Catalonia have done, that must take the appropriate measures, in clear reference to the criticism. from the Community of Madrid to the Ministry of Health to do nothing about this outbreak that threatens the system. In this sense, García recalled that communities are responsible for organizing both health centers and hospital emergency services and the provision of beds.
As La Vanguardia explained this Thursday, the increase in cases is causing an increase in hospitalizations as a result of covid and RSV (which causes bronchiolitis), to which we must add that the number of hospitalizations due to flu has almost doubled. . A situation that translates into an increase in patients in health centers and hospitals, which are once again facing strong tensions that threaten to collapse them in many communities.
Patients lying in corridors, patients with serious symptoms treated in a chair, crowded boxes with up to five people, queues of ambulances at the emergency door to drop off or take users, waits of up to eight, ten or more hours to receive care or process an entry into the plant…
That is the quick photo seen in the last few hours, according to health professionals, in hospitals such as the Consorci Sanitari de Terrassa (100 percent public) and other centers - Hospital del Mar, Bellvitge, Moisès Broggi, Taulí... -, also collapsed, those agree. sources, as the admissions and visits of patients due to respiratory infections and viruses such as the flu or covid multiply.
In the Community of Madrid, for the moment, they have no intention of implementing the obligation to use masks in health centers. Its Minister of Family, Youth and Social Affairs, Ana Dávila, has maintained that the population is "perfectly aware of when they should use the mask" and its use "has to be a recommendation."
In statements to journalists, after an event at the Las Rosas children's home in Madrid, the counselor recalled that in all health centers in the Community, both health centers and hospitals, "a poster recommending the use of the mask when you have symptoms" as well as professionals are using it when it is flu season.
"What we do have to continue encouraging is vaccination, which is still open until the end of the month, and, obviously, continue recommending the use of the mask for people in vulnerable situations or who have symptoms," he told continuation.
The extraordinary meeting of the Interterritorial Council will be held electronically on Monday, January 8 at 9:30 a.m. with the aim of unifying criteria between the autonomous communities in the face of respiratory virus peaks. “A rebound that will foreseeably continue to intensify in the coming days,” García highlighted.
According to the latest weekly report from the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII), the current incidence is close to 1,000 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. The hospitalization rate, despite a slight increase, remains below 30 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
Faced with this reality, the Minister of Health appealed to the common sense of the population who "already has experience in hygiene and vaccination measures thanks to the learning obtained during the pandemic."
