Health anticipates that the use of face masks on public roads will be mandatory starting this Wednesday.

The Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, has advanced that the Official State Gazette (BOE) will publish "most likely tomorrow morning" the Order that establishes the mandatory use of masks on public roads and in closed spaces when it cannot be guaranteed compliance with the minimum safety distance, set at two meters.

At a press conference after the Council of Ministers on Tuesday, the minister has announced that the Order will be in force as soon as it is published in the BOE, something that is expected tomorrow, and that it will have "certain exceptions". Specifically, the masks that the Government will establish as mandatory in these circumstances will be hygienic or surgical.

Asked why this decision is being made now, in a phase with many fewer cases of Covid-19, and not in the most pressing moments of the epidemic, Illa has pointed out that "all decisions and protocols are under permanent review." "In this phase of de-escalation, it seemed to us that it was convenient to take this step. We have agreed with the autonomous communities and we have listened to the experts. It has seemed to us a measure of precaution, caution and security," he explained.

The minister recalled that other European partners have also made this decision in recent weeks, and has reframed this measure in the de-escalation phase, in which the Order establishing a quarantine of 14 has also been promulgated, for example. days for all those travelers who come from abroad.

Illa stressed that th