Colombia to Ease Covid-19 Mask Mandate in Ventilated Areas Starting May 1, 2022

Colombia President Ivan Duque and Health Minister Fernando Ruiz jointly announced this morning (April 25) that the face-mask mandate aiming to stifle  the spread of Covid-19 will ease starting May 1, 2022 – but only in well-ventilated areas where at least 70% of the local population has gotten at least two vaccine doses and 40% have gotten “booster” (typically three) doses.

In addition, people won’t be required to show their “MiVacuna” Covid-19 vaccination card at entries to leisure sites and “mass” activities, according to the official government statement.

However, the mask mandate will continue “in classrooms, offices, churches, public transport, commercial establishments and places without direct ventilation,” according to the bulletin.

“These measures validate a message: we have been fighting this pandemic, not only doubling Intensive Care Units, strengthening the health system, but also achieving a massive, safe, free and equitable vaccination system,” President Duque added.

To aid public education, the Health Ministry will publish an official list of municipalities where local populations have achieved the 70% vaccination rate against Covid-19.

As for travelers 18-years-and-older visiting Colombia, “the recommendation is that they arrive in Colombia with a complete double-dose, or, in the case of the Janssen vaccine, a single-dose,” according to the bulletin.

“Those [travelers] who do not have complete schemes or are not vaccinated will require a negative PCR test that does not exceed 72 hours and may also present an antigen test that does not exceed 48 hours” before arriving in Colombia, President Duque added.

To date, Colombia’s Covid-19 vaccination coverage exceeds 83% of the population for first- and single-doses, 69.2% for complete (minimum two-dose) applications and 34.7% for booster (typically three-dose) regimes, Health Minister Fernando Ruiz added.

While Colombia had initially created 2,700 special points-of-vaccination against Covid-19 nationwide, “today there are 4,700 points, since vaccinations are being done in the country’s hospitals and clinics,” Ruiz added.

“In Colombia we have spent more than COP$15 trillion [US$3.8 billion] on this pandemic, and the health system was able to respond. Those [Covid-19] patients who wound-up in an intensive care unit [ICU] paid practically zero, and that is not everywhere. In other countries people had to pay millions to be in an ICU.”

In addition, the Health Ministry has now settled massive, historic debts that had been choking the finances of hundreds of hospitals and clinics nationwide – clinics that couldn’t collect anything from indigent patients or else didn’t get paid by some deliberately negligent or bankrupt health-insurance networks (“EPS” in Spanish initials), although many of those wobbly EPS networks have since been liquidated, he added.