Mask guidance misses mark
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recent change in masking guidance allows health care facilities to end masking in clinical settings. This guidance misses the mark and fails to protect patients.
While the guidance does instruct that facilities continue masking where immunocompromised patients may be present, it fails to specify how a facility can implement such a policy. The messaging that masks are no longer needed in health care reinforces the idea that care is now “safe” without masks. But physicians and patients know fully well that immunocompromised and other vulnerable individuals mingle with other patients and staff in every waiting room and care space. Risk is far from black and white.
As physicians — two of us are immunocompromised — who have worked throughout the pandemic, we know that masking is not too challenging, too uncomfortable or too inconvenient to protect our patients.
The CDC’s guidance implies that going back to the “pre-COVID-19” way is the right path. On the contrary, we strive to always learn and update policies based on updated scientific discoveries. We should implement new strategies in health care as our understanding of science and evidence builds. When doctors learned that hand-washing protected patients, it became the standard of care. There was once a time when sterile gloves and surgical equipment in operating rooms were not the norm.
While masks can make communication and facial expression challenging, and some patients may do better with unmasked providers, most of the care we provide can easily be done more safely with masks on. Not only for the immunocompromised but also for all patients who run the risk of contracting COVID-19 and developing long COVID-19, a disease we still have much to learn about. We should sort through when care without masks benefits patients instead of trying to shed our masks out of nostalgia, a need for comfort or out of political expediency.
Many medical centers and physician’s offices have already chosen to maintain masking in clinical areas, including here in Chicago. Next time you visit one, they will ask you to wear a mask to minimize COVID-19 transmission.
To those who receive or deliver health care where masking is suddenly missing, we encourage you to push for universal masking to protect you, your health and the health of your community.
— Dr. Shikha Jain, Dr. Seth Trueger and Dr. Emily Landon, Chicago