More than two and a half years after its introduction, the mask requirement in NRW local transport will be history from Wednesday. If you want to protect yourself, you can wear a mask voluntarily.
Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - From Wednesday there will no longer be a mask requirement in public transport in North Rhine-Westphalia. In addition, the five-day isolation requirement for corona infected people is no longer applicable. A few days ago, the NRW Ministry of Health announced that these corona protection measures would be discontinued on February 1, 2023. It referred to a further relaxed infection situation and a high degree of immunization. If you want to protect yourself in particular, you can voluntarily wear a mask on buses and trains.
According to the NRW Ministry of Health, the principle of personal responsibility and consideration for others will apply from February 1st. "Anyone who is sick stays at home," Health Minister Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU) had appealed several times. In long-distance public transport, the mask requirement will only be lifted one day later, on February 2, 2023. Around three years after the start of the pandemic, the most populous federal state is largely returning to normal with these relaxations in corona protection measures.
The mask requirement in local public transport was introduced in NRW at the end of April 2020. Covering your mouth and nose should reduce the risk of catching the coronavirus yourself or others. In addition to surgical masks, self-sewn fabric masks or scarves and cloths pulled over the face were initially permitted as protection. At the end of January 2021, the mask requirement in local public transport in North Rhine-Westphalia was tightened: medical masks such as surgical or FFP2 masks were prescribed.
However, some corona protection measures, most of which are based on federal law, remain in place for particularly vulnerable groups in hospitals, nursing homes and medical practices in NRW.
