FEDERAL SERVICE FOR SURVEILANCE ON CONSUMER RIGHTS PROTECTION AND HUMAN WELLBEING: MANDATORY MASK-WEARING REQUIREMENT MIGHT BE LIFTED IN 2021.

According to the head of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing Anna Popova, the mask-wearing requirement may be lifted this year. This is possible both due to active vaccination, and due to the fact that people have learned to live with a new infection.

As Anna Popova said in an interview with Channel One, the cancellation may affect public places, but no specific dates have yet been named.

According to other experts, the need to wear masks may disappear only after two years. Such an opinion was expressed by the director of the Institute of Medical Parasitology, Tropical and Vector-borne Diseases Alexander Lukashev at the end of December last year. According to the scientist, the disease will not go anywhere over time and will simply become part of the medical system. In this case, the problem with the incidence will be solved by vaccination.

At the moment, the mandatory mask-wearing requirement in Russia remains. It is mandatory for public places, such as public transport, parking lots, shops, elevators etc.

According to statistics on the number of vaccinated people, Russia still ranks eleventh in the world. The top three include the United States, China and the United Kingdom. However, if we do not take the absolute numbers of those who were vaccinated, but use the percentage per share of the population, then Israel occupies a leading place - almost 17 thousand people per each million population have already been vaccinated in the country. In other states, including those leading in absolute numbers, this ratio is lower.