'No choice' but to order more face masks to meet health protection needs of towns on Spain’s Costa Almeria

FACE masks supplied by the national and Almeria governments are being distributed to local councils and to workers using public transport across the province this week, but on top of that, the association of Levante region municipalities has also made an important contribution.
The association is providing 60,000 surgical masks for localities including Antas, Carboneras, Cuevas del Almanzora, Los Gallardos, Garrucha, Mojacar, Pulpi, Sorbas and Turre.
“We are grateful for the help of each administration which provides our villages with material, but the needs are so important that we have had no choice but to turn to the market to order a consignment in order to relieve the situation of the local authorities in our area”, commented association president Garrucha mayor Maria Lopez Cervantes.
The order arrived at the Garrucha Civil Protection base on Easter Friday and was divided up into batches for each municipality. Distribution started on Monday.
The association said the aim was to make it easier for the Levante region of the province to follow Spanish government and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control recommendations on basic protection materials for zones where people gather, on public transport, or for people working.
The association stressed that it shopped around among suppliers to ensure the masks came with sufficient guarantees on quality and standardisation, and with a delivery date to meet the most urgent needs.
“This is another way of lending a hand in a coordinated way and of meeting the needs of the different councils grouped together in this entity, because it is now when we have to show that any model association or group generates an extraordinary strength if, as in this case, we work together,” Lopez Cervantes said.
She also said the association had not ruled out further face mask orders if the council mayors asked, pointing out that it makes sense to centralise the order “in a market which is absolutely saturated.”