Latvia’s Ministry of Health has suggested lifting the mandatory requirement for everyone to wear protective masks when at medical institutions and lasting social care centres, according to the annotation of the legislative draft developed by the ministry.
Currently regulations require both workers and patients to wear masks.
To receive social care services, it is necessary to present vaccination, recovery or negative Covid-19 test result to receive social care services, which goes against the country’s adopted testing algorithms.
The ministry notes that the epidemiological situation has improved in Latvia and the world. Lately there haven’t been any outbreaks with very large numbers of Covid-19 patients. On top of that, Covid-19 infection in most cases is light form and only a small number of patients are hospitalised with Covid-19 as their main diagnosis.
Covid-19 no longer presents a major risk for healthcare. Currently Covid-19 is similar to other respiratory infectious diseases, like seasonal flu. This is why Covid-19 epidemiological measures should be combined with other measures. This includes the requirement to wear protective masks, the ministry explains.
Considering the experience of other European countries’ in lifting mask-wearing requirements and looking at the outlook for Covid-19 going down, it is necessary to discuss the mask-wearing requirement and its lifting for medical institutions and lasting social care institutions.
The project states that masks are not longer required to be worn at medical institutions and social care centres. However, at the same time, medical institutions are to retain the right to reintroduce the requirement for masks for patients, workers and visitors if such a necessity appears. Such a situation may appear if an outbreak is recorded in some specific institution.
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Ministry of Health proposes lifting mask-wearing requirement at medical institutions
