RJ will give autonomy to cities to abolish masks in closed environments

The government of Rio de Janeiro will publish this Thursday (3) in an extra edition of the Official Gazette a decree giving autonomy to municipalities to release the use of masks in closed environments.

The State Department of Health says that the decision to release or not the use of the item will be up to each city hall, since the cities have different epidemiological scenarios.

“There are municipalities with very low epidemiological indicators and others coming out of the fourth wave of Covid. Therefore, from this decree, the municipal health secretariats, through their own normative act, can define whether or not masks will be mandatory in closed environments within their territory”, says Alexandre Chieppe, Secretary of State for Health.

He also says that people will be able to wear the masks even if the protective item is abolished by city halls. “We recommend that people with respiratory signs and symptoms keep wearing the mask if they are going to come into contact with other people. Ideally, these people should isolate themselves.”

The decree is published four days before the meeting of the Scientific Committee in Rio that must decide on the release of the use of masks in closed places in the capital. The meeting is scheduled for Monday (7).

This Wednesday (02), the Municipal Health Department said it was in contact with the state government to align a joint action.

This synergy is important because, without the consent of the state government, the release of masks would have no practical effect. In the case of divergent health rules, the most restrictive always applies. With the publication of the decree, the City Hall of Rio has carte blanche to abolish the use of the item.

Experts, however, cautiously assess the decision. The epidemiologist Raphael Guimarães says that the indiscriminate release is not adequate, because the capital receives people daily from municipalities that do not present an epidemiological scenario as favorable as that of the capital.

“This means, in practical terms, that blocking the circulation of the virus that vaccination provides loses effectiveness. It is worth mentioning that, although coverage [vacinal] in the city is high, it is still below 90%”, says Guimarães, who is a researcher at Fiocruz’s Covid-19 Observatory.

The expert adds that classrooms are environments that inspire care, as the percentage of children with both doses is still low. “If the release is indistinct between locations, children will be unprotected within the schools themselves. Not only in the public network, but also in the private network.”

For epidemiologist Gulnar Azevedo, the city should wait a little longer to allow the use of masks. “The release of the use of masks has to accompany not only the situation of vaccination and the need for hospitalization of people, but also what happened in these days of Carnival”, says Azevedo, who is a professor at the Institute of Social Medicine at UERJ. (University of the State of Rio de Janeiro).

Currently, the numbers show that the pandemic is under control in the city. The positivity rate of Covid tests is at 14%. On Wednesday (02), there were 57 people hospitalized in the public network for Covid, 35 were in the ICU and 22 in the infirmary. The moving average of cases also shows a downward curve, with 187 cases in seven days.

In the state of Rio as a whole, the epidemiological scenario is also under control. The occupancy rate of the wards is 24.8%, while in the ICUs the rate is 43.3%. Currently, seven of the state’s nine regions are at low risk for Covid. The center-south has moderate risk, while the northwest of Rio de Janeiro is the only region with a high risk for the disease.