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Germany’s 16 states have announced plans to make wearing face masks compulsory in public transport form Monday, as the country cautiously begins to loosen lockdown restrictions and aims to reopen its economy in the coming weeks.
Nearly all states will also make it mandatory to wear masks when shopping, to try to control the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
The directive comes a week after Chancellor Angela Merkel strongly recommended the use of face masks as she set out plans for a gradual reopening of the eurozone’s largest economy.
Germany has the fourth-highest number of infections in Europe, behind Spain, Italy and France, and the fifth-highest in the world, where the U.S. leads the number of confirmed cases, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University.
There have been at least 148,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Germany, according to the Robert Koch Institute, the country’s disease and epidemic control center. As of Thursday morning, 5,094 people had died.
Germany’s new rules, will be closely watched by other countries in the 27-nation bloc as well as America, to see what strategies work best as restrictions start to be partially relaxed.
The World Health Organization has said that only people infected with Covid-19 and those caring for people with the disease need to wear masks.
Switzerland said citizens didn’t need to cover their faces, but Austria has made it compulsory to wear masks when people shop.
In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced an executive order that will mandate masks be worn when people are unable to maintain a 6-foot distance between each other. However, the federal government’s recommendations are voluntary.
President Donald Trump signaled his resistance to wearing a mask. “I don’t think I’m going to be doing it,” he said, adding, “Wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens—I just don’t see it.”
Germany’s states have different regulations on wearing masks for shopping. In city-state Berlin, residents won’t have to wear facial coverings when shopping.
However, people in Bavaria, the state hardest-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, and Brandenburg will also make masks mandatory in shops from Monday.
