Face Masks in Shops Made Mandatory in Wales

Face coverings will be mandatory in shops and indoor spaces across Wales from Monday.

The Welsh government have said that people will have to wear masks in shops and other public places in Wales as coronavirus rates continue to rise. First Minister Mark Drakeford announced the new rule this morning ahead of his press conference on lockdown easing today at 12.30 pm in Cathays Park.

Wales will also introduce its own rule of six from Monday, similar to the UK, to limit the number of people who can meet indoors to six. Mr Drakeford said: “We said back in August that if coronavirus reached a certain threshold in Wales we would revisit it and today we will go to a position in Wales where 20 people in 100,000 in Wales are suffering from coronavirus, having reached that threshold we will be making the use of face coverings mandatory.”

The First Minister also stressed that should figures fall, the advice on face masks could be looked at again. Drakeford said the new mask rule was coming in from Monday to give people time to buy them and that he was “confident” people would follow the new rules. Conservative Member of the Senedd, Darren Millar, said on Twitter that Welsh Conservatives had been calling for mandatory masks in shops since early July: “On Wednesday we tabled a debate in the Welsh Parliament. Today, the Welsh Labour-led Government finally act.”

He went on to say: Masks were not “some sort of magic wand” but “a sensible addition to the precautionary measures we are taking” to avert a crisis. Wales recently added Gibraltar and six Greek Islands to its ‘exempt from quarantine’ list.