Spain’s Madrid Metro installs vending machines selling masks and hydrogel

Spain’s Madrid Metro today unveiled its first vending machine selling face masks and hydrogel to encourage passengers to follow the government’s compulsory guidelines to combat the spread of coronavirus.

THEY cost €3, and according to the regional government, can be washed a maximum of 10 times

Madrid Metro intends to install these vending machines in stations with the highest number of passengers as it’s compulsory to wear masks on public transport.

🔊 Nuevas máquinas de venta de mascarillas e hidrogel en las estaciones de Metro de Madrid.
Más info 👉 https://t.co/8yTA39g9L4 pic.twitter.com/mLQkHGHdOj

— Metro de Madrid (@metro_madrid) May 24, 2020

This afternoon, the Vice-President, Regional Minister for Sport, Transparency and Spokesman for the Regional Government, Ignacio Aguado, and the Regional Minister for Transport, Mobility and Infrastructure, Ángel Garrido, revealed the first of the mask vending machines installed at Moncloa station.

Over the next few days they will also be installed in the stations: Nuevos Ministerios, Principe Pio, Plaza de España, Argüelles, Diego de Leon, Atocha-Renfe, Chamartín, Sainz de Baranda, Colombia.

The plan, for the moment, is to keep the machines in place for six months.

Aguado said: “We have presented this initiative, one more measure to ensure safer public transport for all.

“We want to continue reinforcing the safety of citizens, Metro users and underground workers.”

He also praised Madrid Metro, a public company, “for being able to cope with such an unexpected situation as that generated by the coronavirus” and for this scheme, which “guarantees the possibility of acquiring protection equipment for all those who access public transport”.

The use of masks, maintaining a safe distance and frequent hand washing are “key to the continued advancement in the de-escalation of the region, he stressed.

Aguado went on to say that the Community of Madrid is resuming, as of tomorrow Monday, May 25, “the pulse of normality, and this implies greater responsibility and prudence” on the part of the public to overcome the coronavirus crisis.