When other people repaint in September after the summer holidays, the use of masks will become “systematic” in all interior painting spaces, adding meeting rooms, corridors and open offices, Labor Minister Elisabeth Borne told the AFP.
Borne met Tuesday with representatives of trade unions and companies to discuss the new measure, which he said was based on the recommendation of the government’s public qualification board.
Mandatory mask of the French Higher Council of Public Health in all workplaces this weekend, as the daily number of infections in the country exceeded 3,000 for the first time since May.
While masks are commonly used in many Asian countries and are increasingly needed in public places elsewhere due to the coronavirus pandemic, the needs for government-imposed masks in paintings are rare.
Unions have lobbied for more ions opposing viruses, and staff at the Louvre Museum, Amazon France and other sites quit their jobs before this year, fearing that their employers won’t be doing enough for them.
France has already made it mandatory to use masks on public transport and in closed public spaces as government offices, but until now it has left its use in offices at the discretion of employers.
This was criticized in an open letter through an organization of medical experts published in the newspaper Libération that in comparison the virus accumulates in the air from the rooms closed to cigarette smoke.
“And the more the virus accumulates in the air, either for a prolonged exposure time or by a large number of excretors, the more likely we are to contaminate,” they said.
Experts suggested that the government make masking mandatory in all confined spaces, offices and study rooms and that it “unambiguously encouraged” remote work.
Red zones
At least a quarter of the 1,013 virus groups that have emerged since France ended its strict blocking of the virus in May dates back to the workplace, according to the national fitness agency. Family holiday gatherings, dance parties and other summer occasions also have epidemics.
France reported on Monday 493 new Covid-19 infections in the last 24 hours, a sharp decrease in a workload of more than 3,000 in the last two days, but hospitalizations for respiratory diseases were highest for the third day in a row.
The seven-day moving average of new infections, which eliminates irregularities in reports, stands at 2322, above the 2000 threshold for the fourth day in a row, a series that has not been observed since 20 April, when France was in the midst of one of the strictest in Europe. . blockages to involve the spread of the virus.
Paris and Marseille, France’s two largest cities, have been declared “red zones” of infection and have expanded spaces where masking is mandatory.
With France’s viral infection rate now among the highest in Europe, the government is determined not to return to a full blockade that would further hamper the continent’s second-largest economy.
(FRANCE 24 with AP and AFP)