COVID MASK. In order to avoid a new wave of Covid-19 at the start of the school year, wearing a mask is strongly recommended by the government in certain spaces. However, it is not mandatory. We will explain everything to you.
[Mis à jour le 31 juillet 2022 à 11h21] Should we travel masked during this summer vacation? Fortunately, no. On Tuesday July 26, 2022, Parliament adopted the health bill known as “monitoring and health security in the fight against Covid-19”. This new law puts an end to the emergency regimes against Covid-19, preventing the re-establishment of a lockdown or curfew. The end of the state of health emergency also means that the government has fewer possibilities to fight the pandemic. Thus, it will no longer be able to make it compulsory to wear a mask in public spaces or decree maximum gauges in certain places. This therefore gives more freedom to the French, wishing to enjoy their holidays.
However, the mask remains “very strongly recommended”, indicates the Ministry of Health, Thursday July 28. In France, after an increase in cases in June, the trend seems to be downward. Friday, July 29, the epidemiological point from Public Health France indicates that in one week, the incidence rate has dropped by 34% in France. It is 742 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, against 1,131 cases per 100,000 inhabitants the previous week. The spread is down, but the number of critical care admissions remains high. The number of deaths is increasing slightly (+1%), with 641 deaths due to Covid-19 for the week of July 18 to 24, 2022. The most fragile can still be in danger and the mask is often recommended to protect them.
The mask is no longer compulsory in transport, but is only recommended. In airports, the mask is no longer compulsory as well as in planes, “it nevertheless remains recommended”, indicates Paris airport on its site. The SNCF also ensures that “wearing a mask is strongly recommended in our stations and on our trains”. Transit companies in several cities still suggest wearing a mask. “Let’s keep our good habits”, asks the RATP, in a press release published on July 18, 2022. Lyon public transport also advises wearing it in the metros, buses and trams. In Marseille, the RTM, the metropolitan transport authority, published a post on Thursday July 21 on its Twitter account asking to remain vigilant in the face of the virus. “Wearing a mask is strongly recommended network-wide,” she wrote.
These indications are in line with the government’s comments. Thus, the Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, suggests wearing the mask “when you are in closed spaces, where there are a lot of people, especially in transport”. The Minister of Health, François Braun, had also recommended wearing a mask “in buses, trains and crowded places”. The government thus prefers to appeal to the citizen reflex. To the chagrin of some scientists who insist that the lifting of this ban on May 16 was a mistake. Alain Fischer, the president of the Vaccine Strategy Orientation Council, indicated on BFM-TV on July 7, 2022, that the mask should be recommended for fragile people, specifically in transport. “Wearing a mask […] is an act of civility. I highly recommend it. Personally, it wouldn’t have shocked me if it were mandatory,” he said.
With the holidays, tourists from France and around the world increase the risk of contracting the virus. If some prefer to keep the mask on as a precaution, others, on the contrary, are relieved at the end of this constraint. Do some places continue to impose the mask? One of the most visited monuments in Paris, the Eiffel Tower, no longer makes the mask compulsory indoors since March 14, 2022. Since this date, which marks the end of the health pass, many places are accessible without a mask, at the image of Mont-Saint-Michel, but also of several beaches and tourist destinations. Some, such as the Disneyland Paris or Parc Astérix amusement parks, recommend wearing a mask in their enclosure. Finally, the Louvre or Orsay museums also advise wearing a mask inside and respecting barrier gestures. Ultimately, even if it is not compulsory, wearing a mask is often still recommended. If in doubt, you can slip a few into your suitcase, to have peace of mind.
There is no longer a legal framework for wearing a mask. As part of the law putting an end to emergency measures linked to Covid-19, the French can do without this respiratory protection device. On the other hand, wearing a mask remains “highly recommended”, as indicated by the Ministry of Health on Thursday July 28. This recommendation applies particularly to hospitals, stressed the ministry: “The mask remains, for the time being, very strongly recommended within health and medico-social establishments”. The largest hospital group in France, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) went further by declaring that wearing a mask would remain “compulsory” inside “its hospital buildings” for “staff, patients and visitors” in order to protect the most vulnerable.
The law on “monitoring and health security in the fight against Covid-19” was definitively adopted by Parliament on July 26. It includes a substantial reduction in most of the mechanisms for combating the virus: in fact, the text formally repeals, from 1er August, the part of the public health code relating to the state of health emergency as well as the system for managing the health crisis, marking the return to common law. The daily life constraint measures provided for by these regimes – sanitary pass, obligation to wear a mask, confinement, curfew… – can no longer be restored. However, in the context of parliamentary debates prior to the adoption of this health law, the government reiterated its wish that the mask reflex “become the norm again” in “crowded places and public transport”.
Agreement in a joint joint committee on the health monitoring and safety bill: a targeted and concrete mechanism to protect the French. Thank you to the parliamentarians for having been able to build this effective compromise which will allow us to be active and reactive.
— Elisabeth BORNE (@Elisabeth_Borne) July 21, 2022
If the return of the compulsory mask is not there, it is therefore still widely recommended by the government which encourages everyone to “continue to be vigilant”. The advice applies above all to “closed spaces”, when there are “a lot of people, especially in transport”, as the Prime Minister has explained on several occasions.. The text of the law also insists on the need to continue to apply barrier gestures to protect the most vulnerable. On the other hand, this new law clearly specifies that the wearing of a mask will not be the subject of a national measure of obligation. The Minister of Health François Braun does not rule out “making it compulsory again in the event that a” new dangerous variant “appears, as he confided to the Parisian July 17, 2022.
The government is therefore relying on the incentive lever, relying on the citizen reflex of wearing a mask. For Olivier Véran, the government spokesperson, the French have “perfectly integrated” that the virus “was still circulating” and that they must therefore “protect themselves”, in particular before the “departure on vacation”, as he explained it on RTL last July 10. Same speech from the Minister of Health François Braun who appealed to “everyone’s good citizenship”. Wearing a mask is therefore “recommended” in transport, without obligation, just as in “enclosed places where we are in direct promiscuity”, according to the Minister of Health… As such, transport and shopping centers are included in the list of “enclosed places and large gatherings” where the mask is recommended for “frail people, because of their age or their pathologies” (as indicated by the government website). These recommendations are also a call for caution to avoid an epidemic outbreak during the holidays.