How is the end of the use of protective masks against covid19 at work enforced?

Order SND / 726/2023, published in the BOE on July 4, in its art. 1 repeals Law 2/2021 in almost all chapters and articles, and this was the regulation so far in force that established the obligations to use protective masks against covid19 in many areas, such as health centers, sports centers, leisure meetings, and specifically, in its article 7 established the obligation to wear masks to workplaces in certain cases (remember these cases:  the use was mandatory in case the center did not have adequate ventilation systems according to RD 486/97 and the minimum safety distance between workers could not be maintained).

Order SND/726/2023 repeals the aforementioned Law in almost all its articles, and in particular, the aforementioned art. 7. Therefore, all mandatory rules, instructions and preventive measures in all workplaces regarding the use of masks can now be abolished. In the same way that it has established the end of use in health centers, an aspect that has been more publicized of the Order.

However, the Order establishes in article 1 that in certain cases the use of protective masks will be recommended, according to the annex of the SND itself. It will be in these cases:

– For symptomatic people when they are in shared spaces.

 – By professionals who attend to symptomatic cases.

 – By people who work in Intensive Care Units and in Units with vulnerable patients following the infection control recommendations advised by the Preventive Medicine and Occupational Risk Prevention Services according to the risk assessment of each health center.

 – In hospital or primary care emergencies, including the waiting room.

So in workplaces, in shared spaces, it is recommended that people who have symptoms of Covid wear a mask. It is noteworthy that it is a recommendation of the same level as the use in the ICU. And as in the ICU, there are mechanisms for this recommendation to become an obligation (approval in the Safety and Health Committee, for example).