Mask mandates should be reintroduced in all healthcare settings! Convince your healthcare provider!
Lots of healthcare outbreaks + No mask mandates = Time to put masks back on
There is no question that the Covid-19 pandemic is not over.
Given that stark reality, apparent to some but not to others, it sometimes seems like the level of Covid denial is so high that there’s really no chance of ever getting back to widespread non-pharmaceutical interventions like mask mandates. Short of a bird-flu-suddenly-transmissible-in-humans-50%-fatality-rate scenario, of course. And even then. If that’s the state of the world, what can be done?
I’m all for imagining a better world, but I’m also for living in the world that is rather than the one I wish it were. Maybe the best that can be done is getting mask mandates back in healthcare settings.
I’ve written about this topic before, and won’t rehash what’s in those posts.
Maybe your doctor doesn’t wear a mask? Or your physiotherapy clinic has abandoned masks? Maybe if you could show them how many healthcare Covid outbreaks there are? Maybe if you could show them how many other healthcare centres are reintroducing mask mandates? Maybe they would understand the situation a bit better and revisit their own practices?
It’s worth a try.
What’s in this week’s issue? First up, some recent research and articles about masks in healthcare settings. Following that, I have a longer list of recent outbreaks in healthcare settings as well as reports about recent mask mandate reinstatements. These are mostly in Ontario and Canada, where I’m based. For reasons of space, I’m including only a fraction of the stories I’ve collected over the past few months. I’m sure you could come up with similar lists for your own location.
Enoy! Like, share and subscribe!
Healthcare-associated respiratory viral infections after discontinuing universal masking by Zachary M. Most, Bethany Phillips and Michael E. Sebert / Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology
In conclusion, our findings suggest that universal masking in our children’s hospital was effective in reducing respiratory virus transmission and that masking only for all patient encounters was not as effective. Universal masking should be considered as part of the infection prevention toolbox in certain scenarios.
Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic: Updating Our Approach to Masking in Health Care Facilities by Eric J. Chow, John B. Lynch et al. / Annals of Internal Medicine
People in the general community no longer take the same precautions they did at the height of the pandemic and have returned to normal activities despite ongoing circulation of SARS-CoV-2 and other endemic respiratory viruses. This provides further rationale to integrate precautions, such as masking, as part of general practice to protect patients, especially those who are most vulnerable to severe disease. Masking also remains an important mitigation measure to protect the health of our health care workforce, including those who are at high risk for severe disease. Preventing HCW infection is vitally important in maintaining the capacity of an already severely strained health care system.
We Don't Have to Wait 40 Years to Do The Right Thing by Jessica Wildfire / OK Doomer
Semmelweiss introduced the idea of handwashing in 1847. It took forty years to finally become commonplace in healthcare settings. Now our healthcare officials talk about handwashing, but they won't talk about any of the other protections we could be taking to avoid airborne diseases.
They gaslight anyone who disagrees.
We even see some doctors engaging in the exact same bullying that killed Semmelweis. These doctors brag about treating patients without wearing masks, as if their smiles alone can cure disease. They might as well brag about not washing their hands after handling a corpse.
We don't have to wait 40 years to do the right thing.
We could do it now.
A Patient’s Right to Masked Health Care Providers by Katherine A. Macfarlane / Bill of Health
Health care facilities interested in ensuring that high-risk patients are treated by providers wearing masks could take the following steps. First, a facility might return to universal masking, ensuring that no patient must undertake the labor of negotiating masking with their doctor. Second, a facility could ask patients whether they want their health care providers to wear a mask on an intake form. The form would be returned to a receptionist who communicates the patient’s preference, using something as simple as a sticker affixed to the patient’s chart. A doctor who does not comply would be subject to whatever consequence the doctor would face for violating any other workplace rule.
Enforcing a health care provider’s duty to mask should not be left to patients. Masking is an inherently charged subject with the potential to create tension in the patient-physician relationship. That conflict may compromise quality of care or create or exacerbate a patient’s medical trauma. High-risk patients with disabilities have suffered enough.
Removing masks in healthcare is dangerous and unethical. / The People’s CDC
Failing to require masks in healthcare settings violates medical ethical principles. Patients come to clinics and hospitals to improve their health. Healthcare providers have an ethical responsibility to DO NO HARM and ensure that they do not expose patients to COVID. Children and babies who cannot or may not wear masks and people in clinical situations that do not permit mask-wearing (such as post operative units) need others to protect them by wearing masks. Vaccines alone are insufficient to prevent COVID-19 spread. Although vaccines lower the risk of hospitalization and death, vaccinated people can die from COVID-19, or develop Long COVID, which may affect as many as one in five people after COVID infection.
Why more needs to be done to reduce COVID-19 transmission in health and aged care settings by Jennifer Doggett / Croakey Health Media
“If you cannot be safe while receiving healthcare, if your healthcare is impinged by receiving healthcare, there is something fundamentally wrong.
“Failing to prevent COVID transmissions in healthcare settings also makes no sense from a systems perspective. Because of her infection, my aunt is not in rehab for her stroke but is now taking up a bed in hospital with COVID. If doctors and other general practice staff are off sick, who is going to look after their patients?
“If general practice collapses – then what? If the government thinks hospitals are in a bad situation now, they won’t know what has hit them when general practice falls over.
Charities call on NHS England to bring back Covid precautions for staff by Frances Ryan / The Guardian
A survey by Forgotten Lives UK, seen exclusively by the Observer, found that half of clinically vulnerable people surveyed had cancelled a medical appointment over concerns about lack of Covid precautions. More than a quarter had cancelled or declined a vaccine booster for the same reason.
Glynis Huskisson – who is immunocompromised because of a kidney transplant and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and has not produced sufficient antibodies from the vaccine – has been told by her consultant to “avoid Covid at all costs”. Most of her healthcare team do not wear masks or test for the virus.
The 70-year-old needs a hip replacement and surgery for nerve damage but has postponed both due to lack of precautions. She is in constant pain. Huskisson also needs surgery for an enlarged thyroid but doesn’t feel safe going ahead. “It’s growing and starting to crush my windpipe,” she said. “I feel alone and betrayed.”
Stories about Healthcare Outbreaks
Covid-19: Up to 2% of hospital patients acquired infection after being admitted | The BMJ
Windsor Regional Hospital rescinds 1 COVID outbreak while announcing another | CBC News
50 Infected in NY Hospital COVID Outbreak: Mask Mandates Return
Data on COVID-19 scarce as long-term care homes deal with outbreaks | Calgary Herald
COVID outbreak declared at Victoria General Hospital, 11 cases confirmed
COVID-19 outbreaks declared at Westlock, Athabasca hospitals - TownAndCountryToday.com
Visits to Bracebridge Hospital's North Wing suspended due to COVID outbreak - Huntsville Doppler
5 residents dead as COVID-19 outbreak hits Cape Cod nursing home
A COVID Outbreak at NHH Has Postponed Tomorrows Open House | 93.3 myFM
COVID-19 outbreaks reported in care homes, hospitals – Winnipeg Free Press
GRH declares COVID-19 outbreak on inpatient oncology at KW Campus | Grand River Hospital
Another COVID-19 outbreak declared on Sault Area Hospital's surgical unit (3A)
COVID-19 outbreak on 3rd floor at St. Joseph's General Hospital Elliot Lake
Facility-wide COVID-19 outbreak at Rainycrest home - NWONewsWatch.com
Stories about Masks in Healthcare
Manitoba reinstates mask mandates for health-care workers in hospitals, care homes | CBC News
COVID-19 risk within EOHU at high, as hospitals re-introduce masking | Cornwall Standard-Freeholder
Thunder Bay hospital increases masking requirements - TBNewsWatch.com
Masking changes at Grand River and St. Mary’s General Hospitals
'Continuous' masking returning to B.C. hospitals, clinics, care homes | CTV News
Niagara Health System Reinstating Masking Policy - 101.1 More FM
B.C. to reinstate mask mandate in all health-care settings | Globalnews.ca
Mandatory masking rules reinstated at hospitals in Kingston, Ont.
Mandatory masking is back for staff at several Ontario hospitals
With COVID-19 cases edging up, London hospitals revise masking rules | CBC News
COVID masking requirements for staff are back at Health P.E.I. facilities | CBC News
Alberta's masking directive for hospitals takes regional approach
COVID-19: Masks return to Royal Alexandra Hospital | CityNews Edmonton
Enhanced masking requirements expanded to 7 Alberta hospitals: AHS
Face masks mandatory in all areas of Lakeridge Health facilities as of Monday, Oct. 16
Masks mandatory in all health-care settings, pharmacists prepare for fall immunization
At local hospitals, a pandemic staple returns: face masks | London Free Press
More Alberta hospitals add masking requirements | Globalnews.ca
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