The Rio de Janeiro Committee to Combat Covid-19 guided this Monday (07) the release of the use of masks in closed environments in the Rio de Janeiro capital.
The measure should go into effect this Tuesday (8), with the publication of a decree in the Official Gazette. With this, the city becomes the first capital in the country to completely abolish the use of the item.
Flexibility is also valid in schools and public transport. School units, however, will have autonomy to decide whether or not students should continue to wear a mask. In open environments, the use of the protection item was no longer required since October last year.
“Both schools and companies [terão liberdade]. Each company will be able to define internally whether or not to maintain the use of a mask. It is just no longer a mandatory decree”, explains Alberto Chebabo, president of the Brazilian Society of Infectious Diseases and member of the collegiate.
According to him, it is unlikely that the release of the item will cause a new wave of the disease. “The epidemiological scenario in the city is very good. We have a reproduction rate [da doença] of 0.35. We never had this rate during the entire pandemic,” he says, adding that the positivity rate is below 2%.
“So far, we have not seen any impact of Carnival events and crowds on the city’s epidemiological scenario. It is unlikely that non-compulsory will have an impact. But it is important for us to understand that the virus continues to circulate”, he says. he.
Municipal Health Secretary Daniel Soranz recommended that people with immunosuppression, with severe comorbidity or who have not been vaccinated continue to wear a mask. “It is important to emphasize that people with symptoms of Covid should wear a mask to avoid transmitting not only Covid, but other diseases to people.”
Soranz also says that the collection of proof of vaccination will continue to be valid. “For now, the recommendation is to keep charging for the vaccination passport. The secretariat will assess until when this will happen.”
The total release of masks comes four days after the state government gave municipalities autonomy to allow the use of masks in closed places. The Secretary of State for Health said on Thursday (03) that the measure was justified due to differences in the epidemiological scenario of the municipalities.
On Friday (04), Duque de Caxias, in Baixada Fluminense, went ahead to the capital and decided to abolish the use of mask in open and closed environments. The measure, however, does not apply to people who have been infected by Covid or who have any symptoms of the disease.
To support the measure, the City Hall of Duque de Caxias said that the city has a high number of vaccinated people and that cases of the disease have a downward trend.
“To date, the city has applied more than 1.3 million doses of the vaccine against Covid-19. Vaccination coverage numbers in the municipality indicate that 85.5% of the target population was immunized with the first dose. de Saúde informs that, in the last 24 hours, the positivity rate for Covid-19 reached one of the lowest rates, registering 1.37%”, said the city hall in a note.
This, however, was not the first time that masks were abolished in the city. In October last year, Mayor Washington Reis (MDB) decided to allow the use of the protection item both indoors and in open spaces.
A few days after the decision, the Justice suspended the effects of the decree arguing that the decision was taken without the city hall having presented scientific criteria.
In the rest of Brazil, the authorities are also starting to relax the use of masks or are studying decisions in this regard. Since Friday (4), the population of Belo Horizonte is no longer obliged to wear masks in outdoor environments in the city.
When guiding the relaxation of masks, the capital’s scientific committee cited the reduction in the average transmission per infected person in the city and the low occupancy of ICU beds and infirmary for the treatment of people with Covid.
In São Paulo, Governor João Doria (PSDB) is preparing to announce the end of the mandatory use of mask in open environments throughout the state as of Wednesday (9).
At first, the mask can only be taken off on urban roads and open-air environments, such as the outdoor area of bars and restaurants, in addition to parks and squares, for example.
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