Spain has reintroduced the mask in hospitals and gyms in the face of a surge in flu and Covid cases.
The decision, made only six months after the use of masks ceased to be obligatory in health facilities and pharmacies, has proved controversial with some regional administrations.
But overruling them, Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia told reporters: “What we have to do is protect the most vulnerable people. It’s just common sense.”
The health ministry ordered wearing a mask in hospitals and healthcare centres and recommended masks in private clinics, pharmacies and other medical facilities such as dentist offices.
Several Spanish regions had already ordered patients, visitors and hospitals to wear masks last week.
Spain’s central office on Monday ordered the extension of this requirement to the entire country.
However, some of the 17 Spanish autonomous communities, guilty of fitness issues, opposed the decision.
Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the populist president of the Community of Madrid, considered García’s decision to impose the use of masks unnecessary.
“Making masks mandatory now is improvisation,” he wrote Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter.
“Madrid has fewer instances because it has been fighting the flu for a long time: strategies; Recommendations; surveillance, vaccination. . . Imposing by imposing is the recourse of a weak manager.
The regions will be able to lift the requirement if infections fall for two weeks in a row.
Spain is one of the last European countries to remove the mask mandate after the Covid pandemic, with others being asked to wear them on public transport until February 2023 and in gyms and pharmacies until July.