Latvian police to not take special measures to check with new mask-wearing rules

Latvian State Police will not organise any special raids to control residents’ compliance with the new mask-wearing requirements. Police patrols will do that in their everyday rounds, as reported by State Police Public Relations Office manager Simona Grāvīte.
Grāvīte noted that use of personal protection gear is the responsibility of residents and owners of public places, such as supermarket, cultural and eateries.
Police stress that since the start of the pandemic they have focused on the principle that warnings and prevention measures lie at the foundation of epidemiological safety requirements. Police apply penalties for breach of epidemiological prevention measures and requirements. Considering the aforementioned, the recently updated requirement is no exception.
Breach of Covid-19 restrictions is punishable with a warning of administrative fine EUR 10 to EUR 2 000 for private persons and a fine of EUR 140 to EUR 5 000 for legal persons.
As previously reported, from 25 January onward residents will be allowed to wear only medical masks or FFP2 respirators in Latvia. Wearing fabric masks will be prohibited starting from that date.
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At the same time, it is allowed for students seven to 12 years old to not use medical masks and FFP2 respirators if they use non-medical fabric masks. Children using public transport services will be allowed to continue using fabric masks.
Amendments will also cross out the exception for 1st to 3rd graders to not wear masks at all during classes. Another exception that will be crossed out from rules is for fully vaccinated or recovered persons to not wear masks when among other vaccinated or recovered people (at work, at school, amateur performance collectives, etc.). The reason is because not wearing protective masks is no longer allowed because of the rapid spread of Omicron.
During a government meeting the State Chancellery’s Director Jānis Citskovskis said poor residents will be provided with 50 masks, which is a number calculated to last two months.