Outdoor masks, Bassetti: “I would have removed the obligation already today”

“I would have eliminated the obligation to” wear a mask “outdoors already today, but I am confident that from June 28th we could take it off in the open air”. Matteo Bassetti, director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic of the San Martino hospital in Genoa, underlines this to Adnkronos Salute. “For a month now I have been asking the CTS for an evaluation, first of all scientific, but also of common sense. It will have to tell us what the role of this protective device is today in changed epidemiological conditions and on the basis of new evidence on outdoor infections. It is right that the CTS gives recommendations as an advisory body to the Minister of Health, but these must be reasonable. Today people have difficulty in keeping the mask in the heat, therefore, it must not be an ideological attitude otherwise we demean this important device “. According to Bassetti “if there is a need in the autumn, we can think of putting back the obligation of outdoor masks, but with these epidemiological conditions we must understand that the risk – warns the infectious disease specialist – of making Italians indigestible this device, which, on the other hand, was decisive in an important phase of the pandemic, is high “.