MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Although not mandatory, Montevideo wants to keep sanitary measures

Adhering to the recommendations is voluntary and failure to follow them entails no legal consequence

Even after Uruguay's national Government has decreed the end of the sanitary restrictions stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, the City Hall of Montevideo Tuesday urged the population to keep wearing facemasks “in buses, cabs, and other means of passenger transport.”

The metropolitan authorities also issued a recommendation to adopt ventilation measures “to renew the air inside the units, in order to preserve the best possible conditions.”

President Luis Lacalle Pou Tuesday signed the decree lifting the sanitary emergency which had been in force since March 13, 2020. “The Ministry of Public Health informed the Executive Power that, in our country, there has been a sustained decrease in the number of people infected by the SARS-CoV2 virus, in all its variants, and that this, added to the high percentage of vaccination of the Uruguayan population, are circumstances that justify the decision to cancel the national health emergency declared at the time,” the decree states.

“In view of the national and regional scenario of a global downward trend in the incidence of covid-19 cases, hospitalization rate and lethality, it is deemed opportune and convenient to annul Decree No. 93/020, of March 13, 2020,” the document went on.

Indoor facilities now may welcome people up to 100% of their capacity and with no mandatory vaccination requirement. Nevertheless, Montevideo officials have urged restaurants to maintain a permanent sanitization of the premises while making alcohol available to customers while keeping a sanitary distance at self-service eating facilities. “These actions are not mandatory and there are no sanctions for those who do not comply with them,” the City Hall also admitted. It also urged staff at stores and supermarkets to keep wearing facemasks.