Is the Covid-19 pandemic still serious enough to merit WHO’s maximum alert level? The organization’s Covid-19 emergency committee is meeting this Friday, January 27 to decide. For the boss of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the answer does not seem to be in doubt.
Tuesday, January 24, he said “remain very concerned about the situation in many countries and the growing number of deaths”. “Do not underestimate this virus, it has surprised us and will continue to surprise us and it will continue to kill,” he said. Even if the threat is still present and sub-variants of Omicron continue to emerge, some countries, particularly in Asia, are nevertheless lifting the obligation to wear a mask.
Japan: the recommendation to wear the mask lifted in May
The Japanese government will lift its recommendation to wear a mask indoors and lower its medical classification of Covid-19, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced on Friday. These changes will come into effect on May 8, 2023. Covid-19 will then be classified in the same category as the flu, instead of the current one where it rubs shoulders with tuberculosis and SARS.
“Regarding whether to wear the mask, whether indoors or outdoors, the decision will be left to individuals,” Fumio Kishida told a televised government meeting. “We will make further decisions regarding ‘life with coronavirus’ and gradually return to normal in homes, schools, businesses, neighborhoods and all aspects of life,” he added.
In Japan, masks are ubiquitous in public places and are frequently worn outdoors as well, even though the government has said in the past that they are no longer needed outdoors when there are no crowd.
Even before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, many Japanese wore masks when they had a cold or to ward off viruses in winter. Mainstream media polls show that the majority of the population will continue to wear a mask, for public health reasons, even after the government recommendation is lifted.
South Korea: indoor masks abandoned, except in transport and hospitals
In South Korea, as authorities announced on Friday January 20, wearing a mask will no longer be mandatory in most indoor spaces – except in public transport and medical establishments – from Monday January 30, i.e. ” after the Lunar New Year holiday,” said Jee Young-mee, head of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
Wearing a mask, mandatory since October 2020, was one of the last restrictions still in place in South Korea, curfews for businesses and social distancing measures having long since been abolished. However, those who test positive for Covid-19 will still have to self-isolate for seven days.
The goal is that wearing a mask indoors will no longer be “compulsory” but “recommended”, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said during a government meeting on the response strategy to Covid-19. According to him, this decision was taken in view of the response capacity considered solid of the Korean health system, the decrease in the number of serious cases and deaths due to the coronavirus, as well as the downward trend of new infections.
Nearly 30 million South Koreans have had Covid-19, and more than 33,000 have died from it, according to official data. The strategy of South Korea, a country which has tested massively without ever imposing compulsory confinement, was welcomed at the start of the health crisis and quickly set up as a model against Covid-19.
Spain: the obligation of the mask lifted in transport
In Europe, this time, the Spanish government will lift the obligation to wear a mask in public transport in February, the Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, announced on Thursday January 26. “I will present to the Council of Ministers on February 7 a proposal to abandon the compulsory nature of the mask in public transport”, she declared to the press, without specifying the exact date of entry into force of this measure. “We currently have a very stable epidemiological situation,” she added, adding that wearing a mask would remain compulsory in health centers and hospitals.
Spain had lifted the compulsory wearing of a mask indoors in April 2022, but it remained compulsory in transport (metro, bus, trains, etc.). This measure has always been highly respected in the country, which was traumatized by the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, in the spring of 2020, and then imposed one of the strictest confinements in the world.
Spain had even been one of the few countries to reinstate for a few weeks, at the end of 2021, the obligation to wear a mask outdoors to deal with the surge of the Omicron variant.