Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

MASK

Swedish chain pulls Scream masks after school knife attack

A chain of superstores in central Sweden have pulled so-called ‘Scream masks’ ahead of Halloween, after a local teenage boy carried out a knife attack wearing one.

Published: 27 October 2018 15:03 CEST
Swedish chain pulls Scream masks after school knife attack
The scream masks are popular as Halloween costumes. Photo: Ingvar Svensson/TT
The Hemmahallen chain has pulled the masks, worn by the character Ghostface in the popular Scream series of horror films, from its two stores in Jönköping and Värnamo. 
 
“It's a product which you could have sold previously, but you won’t be able to buy one from us, not this year at least,” Andreas Franzén, manager of the stores told Swedish Radio. 
 
“We have no hesitation whatsoever in pulling things from the store which make people uncomfortable or frightened.” 
 
A boy at Råslättsskolan, a school in Jönköping, wore one of the masks when he carried out a knife attack, which left two of his fellow pupils lightly injured at the start of September. 
 
A police car at Råslättsskolan on the day of the attack. Photo: Anna Hållams/TT
 
The boy had openly boasted on social media that he planned to kill someone in the two months leading up to the attack, sharing pictures of an axe and other weapons he was considering using. 
 
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill myself, but I’m planning to kill someone else,” he wrote in a post, the Aftonbladet newspaper reported. 
 
The boy ran home after the attack, where he had time to log on to his computer before the police arrived to arrest him. 
 
”I failed,” he wrote. “I'm going to get seized soon.” 
 
He has since been referred by Sweden's social services to a secure facility for troubled young people. 
 
 
Franzén told Swedish Radio that he had stopped selling clown masks in 2016, when Sweden was hit by the 'creepy clown' craze then sweeping the world. 
 
 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

FEATURE

Will facemasks be compulsory outdoors in Spain this summer?

Despite the existing legislation, a growing number of voices in Spanish politics and science are calling for mask rules to be relaxed when the summer heat rolls around and Spain’s vaccine campaign is more advanced. 

Published: 17 May 2021 17:28 CEST
Will facemasks be compulsory outdoors in Spain this summer?
Photo: Lluis Gené/AFP

Face masks have been compulsory in public in Spain since May 21st 2020 and since March of this year you are required to wear them in almost all indoor and outdoor settings even if you’re sticking to the safety distance, unless the activity is incompatible with mask wearing ie. eating, drinking, sunbathing, running etc

But with the vaccine campaign that’s underway in Spain and globally, politicians and scientists are now weighing up the pros and cons of keeping the mask at-all-times rules. 

Back in April, the EU called for mask wearing among vaccinated people to be reconsidered in Member States.

In the United States, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have recently advised that fully vaccinated people don’t need to wear masks outdoors nor in most indoor spaces.

The same questions regarding the benefits of masks in outdoor settings for preventing Covid infections are now being asked in Spain.  

Catalonia is the latest region to say it will study “in the coming weeks” the possibility of not making masks obligatory outdoors once they have reached certain vaccine targets.

“Based on the knowledge acquired in other countries and the evolution of the pandemic, it will undoubtedly be a debate that we will have on the table in the coming weeks,” Regional Health Secretary Marc Ramentol told local radio RAC1.

According to Ramentol, the Catalan government considers that with at least 30 percent of the population fully vaccinated and more than half of the population with at least one dose, the matter is worth discussing. 

Not having to wear a mask outdoors will help the summer “feel more like 2019 than that of 2020”, said Ramentol.

READ ALSO: What are the restrictions after the state of alarm in each region of Spain?

Galician President Alberto Núñez Feijóo has also said that if people in the northwestern region continue to behave “with the caution that the situation requires”, masks won’t be required outdoors in two months. So far, 43.6 percent of people in Galicia have received at least one vaccine. 

But for Spain’s national Health Ministry, in order for people to go mask-free outdoors, at least 50 percent immunity among its population must have first been achieved. 

For indoor mask legislation to be reconsidered the widely quoted 70 percent immunity target has to be met first, which according to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will happen in just over 90 days in late August.

Spain’s Health Emergencies coordinator Fernando Simón has also said that it was “common sense” to modify the outdoor masks rules and added that the regions were already in discussions with Spain’s Health Ministry. 

However, some regional authorities such as Valencia and Andalusia prefer to remain cautious and maintain current outdoor mask rules until more people are vaccinated, even if it means enduring the outdoor summer heat in those regions with a mask on. 

A tourist in Seville wearing a mask and carrying an umbrella when temperatures went over 40C last summer. Photo: CRISTINA QUICLER/AFP

What do the experts say?

There’s a mixture of opinions, with some saying wearing masks outdoors doesn’t make enough of a difference to lowering infections, and others saying Spain shouldn’t jump the gun and wait to achieve more immunity among its inhabitants. 

Last March, 100 Spanish virologists and other scientists signed a letter discouraging outdoor mask usage by arguing that the chances of getting infected with Covid-19 are 20 times lower outdoors than indoors. 

But for other leading Spanish virologists such as Amós Rodríguez of the Spanish Vaccination Association, it’s still too early to consider the easing of mask measures. 

“In Spain we are starting to go into cruise control in terms of vaccinations, but we still have a long way to go to achieve reasonable immunity that allows us to consider detaching ourselves from the barrier tools we have lived with for most of the pandemic. 

“At this moment it is not a debate and it should not be.”

Spain has had some of the strictest mask rules in Europe since the start of the pandemic, requiring masks in all indoor and outdoor spaces for almost a year now. 

Other countries such as France and Italy have adopted similar measures whereas Scandinavian nations initially or still make mask usage voluntary. In the UK, masks have to be worn in indoor settings but not outdoors.  

In March, Spain made international headlines when it decided to make masks compulsory in all public settings for all people aged 6 and over even when the safety distance of 1.5 metres was being met (with the exception of people with health problems). 

The backlash it caused after locals and tourists realised this would mean they would have to wear a mask while sunbathing or at the pool led Spanish authorities to tweak the legislation to allow some exceptions. 

Even if Spain does end up easing mask legislation in certain settings, it’s unlikely that we’ll see a blanket lifting of the rules overall, even when the country’s 70 percent immunity target is met. 

In indoor areas with poor ventilation, it could be that masks remain compulsory even once Spain puts the worst of the pandemic behind it. This is España after all, the land of packed taverns, heaving squares during local fiestas and busy public transport. 

READ ALSO: Why are masks still compulsory in Spain if the state of alarm is over?

SHOW COMMENTS