The use of masks outdoors will cease to be mandatory from Thursday and the Balearic Government already has planned the next step: the withdrawal of the extension of uses of the COVID passport. "We value at all times the situation we have, the incidence at this time is falling and we study how to continue with the process of normalisation of the measures, and this is one of the issues that we see at this time," said Balearic President, Francina Armengol.
Then she also warned that "I do not like to speculate", so there is no definite date. "We will explain it when we announce it. Obviously it will be as soon as possible," she added. For the moment, the High Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands endorsed its use until February 28 and, before it lapses, "we have to talk to the healthcare professionals, see the situation we have in the hospitals and centres and then make decisions," the president specified.
Francina Armengol defended Covid passport use, "it has helped us a lot to give security to spaces with more crowds, also to encourage vaccination, we must recognise it," she said. In addition, she said that the Balearic Islands already counted on this tool "from the beginning", with the control of passengers at the entrance of ports and airports, after the confinement of 2020. "Then we introduced its use to nightlife and catering, it was their way to open safely," she said.
The opposition PP had devoted much of thier usual Monday press conference to request the withdrawal of the COVID passport "this week". Cs and Vox also defended this proposal. Vox, moreover, "celebrated" that the 'populares' changed their mind. The parliamentary spokesman of the PP, Antoni Costa, specified that if they supported it at the time, in exchange for increasing the restrictions and to promote the vaccination of people reluctant to be vaccinated, the time had come to withdraw it. And he demanded Armengol to do it now. The spokesperson of Cs, Patricia Guasp, highlighted -however- the contradiction that the PP defends the COVID certificate in some communities where it governs and opposes it when it is in the opposition. PSIB, Més and Podemos indicated that it is necessary to be guided by the criteria of health experts.