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Health Minister Alain Berset (48) is starting a new dispute over masks: in his consultation with the cantons, he proposes requiring the use of masking outdoors. “Everyone should wear a mask in public spaces in settlement areas,” the draft says. So if you go out of your apartment onto the street, you have to put on a mask, no matter how many people are on the road.
A proposal that provokes discussion. Until now, not even the Covid scientific working group has required a general outdoor mask requirement. First, it advocates for a broad requirement for masks in all indoor spaces, as well as in overcrowded outdoor areas.
Define the requirements of the outdoor mask more precisely
It is reportedly a strategic move by Berset. With his extreme proposal, he wants to pressure cantons that are too reluctant.
In the meantime, however, the SP magistrate has realized that the proposed regulation is too broad. BLICK knows: Berset wants to give in. Although he does not completely abandon the requirement of the outdoor mask, he wants the scope to be more clearly defined and narrowed.
This could mean, for example, that the outdoor mask requirement only applies when there are crowds of people or when distance measurements cannot be observed. The Federal Office of Public Health has taken on the task of developing a new and clearer formulation, says Federal Bern.
Mask requirement as another piece of the puzzle
The Ticino virologist Andreas Cerny also sees this as the right direction. “The risk of Covid transmission is certainly much lower outdoors,” he tells BLICK. “But where there are a lot of people crowded together, like in a narrow shopping street or a Chilbi, a transmission is theoretically conceivable.” Or, for example, during the lunch break when coworkers sit together on a bench. And generally in the center of cities, where there are many people away from home.
“Therefore, mandatory outdoor masks make epidemiological sense in certain situations,” says Cerny. The more precise definition is a challenge for the authorities, but also necessary. “The measure must be proportionate so that people will support it.” For virologists, the requirement to wear a mask outdoors is another piece of the puzzle in the fight against the pandemic.
Cerny: “We have our backs to the wall”
He also believes that Berset’s new package of measures is correct. “Of course we can question every measure,” says Cerny. But: “We have already lost too much time and we have our backs to the wall, the Federal Council must now move forward.” This package is necessary to cover the highest risk situation as a whole.
