NOTE: I will start this article by telling you upfront — the title is slightly sensationalistic but… it got you here, and you will learn exactly where you must still wear an FFP2 mask in Vienna, Austria in June, 2022 and beyond in seconds.
Then you can move on to enjoy the rest of your day.
So… here is what you need to know about wearing an FFP2 mask in Vienna in June, 2022 …
From today, June 1st, 2022, FFP2 masks are only mandatory in Vienna:
- On public transportation (and in associated stations and platforms)
- In a pharmacy,
- In what are being called ‘vulnerable settings’ — ie: hospitals and other places where health and care services are provided. This includes doctors’ offices, and nursing homes for the elderly.
Otherwise, you can go everywhere else in Vienna as bare-faced as the day you were born.
That includes when visiting restaurants and cafes, supermarkets, shops, concert halls, museums and the like.
FFP2 masks still mandatory on Vienna public transportation and in pharmacies
Unfortunately, for people who use public transportation in Vienna (and I don’t as I refuse to wear an FFP2 mask, so I walk instead), the city’s mayor has decided everyone still needs to wear an FFP2 mask on all public transportation in Vienna.
This, even though the rest of Austria has scrapped mandatory FFP2 masks everywhere, except in healthcare facilities and nursing homes, as of today.
Vienna’s mayor (and I don’t name him, as why give the guy any publicity as, in my opinion, he is a fool) has also decided you must wear a mask if you enter a Vienna pharmacy (aka what is generally called an ‘apotheke‘ here in Austria).
Of course, you don’t need to wear an FFP2 mask in a concert hall in Vienna while surrounded by 500 other people, or in a city museum that thousands of people visit in a typical day.
But you must wear an FFP2 mask on a tram with 6 other people near you, or in a pharmacy with just you and the pharmacist.
Because, you know, “science”.
In other words, while the rest of Austria has moved on from mandating suffocating FFP2 masks that, arguably, did little to stop the spread of Covid-19 in the first place, Vienna’s mayor apparently thinks he knows better.
Alrighty then.