It has now been one week since workers were allowed, but not forced, to head back to the office. Protective masks have been distributed all week for commuters, with strict instructions to maintain social distancing. Óscar Velasco, the press officer for the Red Cross in Barcelona, worked in various train and metro stations to hand out masks over the course of the week. From what he saw, for the most part people have continued to work digitally.
"It was not a huge coming back to work. We are still in self-lockdown, I could say. On Tuesday, 1.700.000 masks were supposed to be distributed on the metro. Nevertheless, after two days we ended up distributing 204.000 masks. This means people were still working digitally. They maintained social distancing of one and a half or two metres, and it was really quiet. I was in the most crowded stations in Sants and Plaça Catalunya, and could see that in Sants, we only distributed 7.000 masks. In Plaça Catalunya, on the first day of distributing masks we distributed about 500. It’s a low number compared to the volume that we have to distribute."
The Red Cross is continuing its fantastic work across Europe, providing masks, food, healthcare and much more support.