The mask is once again mandatory in hospitals and health centers in the Valencian Community starting this Friday, January 5. The Ministry of Health has sent to the health departments of the Valencian Community an instruction from the General Directorate of Public Health that establishes the mandatory use of masks in health and social health centers as a preventive measure in the face of the resurgence of respiratory virus infection.
A situation that is widespread throughout Spain since the incidence of flu continues to clearly rise and is expected to continue growing until at least the end of next week.
As La Vanguardia explained this Thursday, the increase in cases is causing an increase in hospitalizations as a result of covid and RSV (which causes bronchiolitis), to which we must add that the number of hospitalizations due to flu has almost doubled. . A situation that translates into an increase in patients in health centers and hospitals, which are once again facing strong tensions that threaten to collapse in many communities.
Given this, the Valencian has been one of the first autonomies to act. The instruction justifies the extent to which Order SND/776/2023 of the Ministry of Health, which declared the end of the mandatory widespread use of masks in health centers, specified the situations in which their use should be reinforced. In this sense, given the incidence of respiratory infections in the Valencian Community (rate 1,501 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in epidemiological week 52), it is considered pertinent to establish the mandatory use of masks in health and social health centers.
The instruction indicates that in the rest of the situations that are generally intended for the protection of people considered vulnerable, the management of the health departments, supported by their own protocols and the recommendations of the Preventive Medicine Services, may establish the mandatory use of a mask in addition to the established indications, depending on the epidemiological situation and the particular structural and functional characteristics of its dependent centers.
On the other hand, the Department of Health recalls that, as Minister Marciano Gómez announced this Thursday, health centers will administer doses of flu and COVID-19 vaccines starting next Monday, January 8, without the need for by appointment, with the purpose of promoting the immunization of the population in the face of the rebound in respiratory infections.
Likewise, the Ministry has adopted a series of special assistance measures in response to the rebound in respiratory infections typical of this winter period.