Brazil’s health agency plans to once again require travelers to wear masks

Over the past year or so, we’ve seen a countless number of countries eliminate mask mandates for travel. Well, Brazil is countering the trend, and is reintroducing mask requirements at airports and on airplanes.

Brazil’s health regulatory agency, Anvisa, has announced plans to once again require travelers to wear masks. Specifically, as of Friday, November 25, 2022, Brazil will once again require masks at airports and on airplanes.

Brazil was only one of the more recent countries to lift its mask mandate, as the country stopped requiring them for travel back in August 2022. The mask requirement won’t be quite as strict as before, as airlines will be able to serve food and drinks as usual (while previously there were restrictions regarding service on domestic flights).

The mask requirement is being reintroduced as Brazil is seeing an increase in coronavirus cases in recent weeks. While cases are indeed up, they’re nowhere near what we saw at the beginning of the year, when there was the initial omicron surge. Then again, there’s also not as much testing going on nowadays.

Brazil’s coronavirus cases over the past year
Health authorities are concerned about a seasonal uptick in cases between November and January. While these are spring and summer months in Brazil, this reflects that this is also when many people from around the globe visit Brazil, which may lead to further cases being imported.

Here’s how Alex Campos, who proposed the return of this measure, describes the decision:

“The use of masks in higher risk environments, due to their characteristics of confinement, circulation and agglomeration of people, represents an act of citizenship and protection of the community and aims to mitigate the risk of transmission and contagion of the disease.”