Coronavirus measures: Decision on mandatory face masks in shops not expected until late next week

In the meantime, the government is merely advising their use, rather than demanding it.

The news comes a day after health minister Robin Swann came out in favour of the practice becoming mandatory, adding that both the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser at Stormont agree that masks should be worn “in retail stores and other indoor spaces”.

However the Executive Office said the next time when all Northern Ireland’s ministers will meet is expected to be Thursday, July 23 – and it is understood that is when a decision will be taken.

Face masks are already mandatory in Scottish shops, and England will follow on July 24. In Wales they are not compulsory in shops; instead, the government there says its medical advice is to support “the public’s right to choose” (although they will be mandatory on public transport later this month).

If people do decide to wear face coverings, it says these “should be made up of three layers, as set out by the World Health Organisation”.

In the Republic of Ireland, on Wednesday the new taoiseach announced that face coverings must now be worn in all shops, retail settings and shopping centres.

There are already legal regulations requiring the mandatory wearing of masks on public transport in the Republic (and in Northern Ireland since July 10), and the taoiseach Micheal Martin said that now “regulations with details on enforcement and penalties will be formulated” in relation to masks in shops.

Speaking yesterday, when she met Mr Martin while he visited Belfast, Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill said: “The chief medical officer (Dr Michael McBride) has made it very clear that while perhaps at one stage of this pandemic he was not convinced of the merits of face coverings, we are now in a space where he thinks that is the case.

“We will look at all of that evidence and then make a decision on that. But I think that as more and more people are moving around as we come to the end of the shielding period, there is probably a logical reason as to why face coverings should be a thing that we are all (forced to wear).”

Briefing the media separately from Arlene Foster, she added that Northern Ireland’s policies needed to be aligned with the Republic’s, and that the jurisdictions’ chief medical officers were working closely together.

According to the Department of Health, the total number of Covid-19 deaths recorded as of yesterday in Northern Ireland was 556.

The frequency has slowed markedly from a peak on April 22 (when 19 deaths were recorded in a day) to now, when it has become increasingly routine to have no deaths reported each day, ever since the first death-free day on June 4.

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