COVID is on the rise again, with a peak likely over the holiday season. Given this, health authorities in a number of Australian states have…
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Tag: N95 respirators
Topic: take actionView all posts for the topic: take action
Ontario: Keep masks in healthcare!
📣 Let hospital CEOs and MPPs know you want universal masking with respirators in Ontario hospitals
✉️ Send letters to voice your support for universal masking with respirators in hospitals. You can use your own email software to send the letters.
Why take action? SARS-CoV-2 is an airborne, level 3 pathogen. We need universal masking with respirators to prevent COVID-induced health issues, including long COVID, cognitive issues, and cardiovascular diseases.
Please take a moment to voice your support for universal masking with respirators in Ontario hospitals!
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Topic: take actionView all posts for the topic: take action
Ontario: We need universal masking with respirators in our hospitals!
Protect our health – please send a letter to support universal masking with respirators in Ontario’s hospitals!
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Ottawa: We need universal masking with respirators in our hospitals!
Protect our health – please send a letter to support universal masking with respirators in hospitals!
Comments closedTopic: British ColumbiaView all posts for the topic: British Columbia
Dr. Lyne Filiatrault discusses masks in healthcare
On September 27, BC provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, and health minister, Adrian Dix, announced mandatory masking would be re-established in healthcare environments as COVID-19 cases are rising at a rapid rate. Starting October 3, masks became mandatory once again in healthcare settings.
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BC’s new masking guidance isn’t enough
As of October 3, masks are mandatory for healthcare workers and visitors in settings that are accessible to patients, including areas where they receive care. This includes spaces like the rooms where doctors and nurses serve patients directly, or areas where patients may stay while waiting, such as lobbies. The policy also extends to contractors or volunteers in the area, but does not include private clinics or patients themselves.
Comments closedTopic: N95 respiratorsView all posts for the topic: N95 respirators
Expected CDC guidance on N95 masks outrages health care workers
Nurses, researchers and workplace safety officers worry new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might reduce protection against the coronavirus and other airborne pathogens in hospitals.
Comments closedTopic: pandemic responseView all posts for the topic: pandemic response
Where Have All The Masks Gone? And Why Is The CDC Missing In Action?
Comments closedThe Biden administration has made a political choice—not a scientific or public health one—to downgrade the national response to COVID-19. Included in this is the reticence or outright avoidance of mentioning masking even as cases rise in the US. The CDC director, in talking about this late increase in COVID cases, bends over backward to mention hand-washing, but not N95s. Without question, N95s offer individuals protection against infection and leaving out that fact is a disservice and an abdication of duty.
Topic: New YorkView all posts for the topic: New York
New York State sending masks, COVID-19 tests to schools for start of classes
New York State is sending masks and COVID-19 rapid tests to school districts that request them for the start of the 2023-24 school year.
Comments closedTopic: hospital-acquired infectionsView all posts for the topic: hospital-acquired infections
The CDC Doesn’t Care if You Get Sick and Die in The Hospital
“You might’ve heard the CDC is about to make things even more dangerous for patients when they vote on new, lower standards for infection control this November. This decision will hurt everyone. It will hurt doctors and nurses. It will hurt seniors. It will hurt children. It will hurt young, healthy adults (who goes to the hospital when they’re feeling great?) There’s only one small group it will help, and that’s healthcare CEOs and their bottom lines.”
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Four months after healthcare mask mandate dropped, a protest calls for its return
“It’s now obvious we’ve started a COVID surge with a new variant, right when flu and RSV [respiratory syncytial virus] are about to hit. Our healthcare system is on its knees. We have the tools, and we need to use them. Not restoring mask protections to healthcare would be criminal.”
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COVID response confounds SARS expert
Comments closedWe don’t understand all the implications of long COVID. Basically, this virus gets into your body and it doesn’t leave. […] And it invades the lining of the blood vessels and every organ of your body.
Topic: universal maskingView all posts for the topic: universal masking
Everyone Has The Right to Mask
Dozens of studies have shown that not only do N95 masks work on an individual level, but they lower transmission when people actually follow guidelines. Even the strongest critics of mask policies are forced to admit that masks themselves are effective.
Comments closedTopic: human rightsView all posts for the topic: human rights
A Patient’s Right to Masked Health Care Providers
In May 2023, Mass General Brigham instructed its patients that they “cannot ask staff members to wear a mask because our policies no longer require it.”
Following patient protests, the hospital updated its policies with an imperfect fix, announcing that “patients can ask, but providers determine when and if masking in a particular situation is clinically necessary.”
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Public Health should offer N95 masks
Re: Heavy smoke, smog wallop Ottawa, cancelling Dragon Boat, Indigenous festivals, June 25.
Thanks to climate change, we’re experiencing unprecedented hazardous air quality. Concentrations of pollutants have been an order of magnitude greater than the levels in major cities. And more smoke is on the way.
Ottawa Public Health should follow the example of public health organizations in other cities: it should distribute N95 respirators to Ottawa residents. Huron Perth Public Health is now offering respirators to residents who are at high risk for respiratory issues.
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Hospitals must keep the masks
Re: Three Ottawa hospitals loosen masking requirements, still require them in clinical areas, May 15.
I’m really disappointed to hear that masks will no longer be required in certain public spaces at the Queensway Carleton, Montfort and Royal hospitals. Preventative medicine is best.
We need universal masking with N95 and FFP3 respirators to reduce the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses.
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Masks Work. Distorting Science to Dispute the Evidence Doesn’t
Masks work. Especially respirator-style N95 masks.
Amid an ongoing pandemic and outbreaks of influenza and RSV caused by airborne viruses, arguing over the virus-blocking power of masks remains one of the COVID era’s signature follies. Disconcertingly, despite decades of evidence of their efficacy, some of the disagreement comes from a few in the medical field itself, misusing science and endangering lives.
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Opinion: Why hospitals should keep mandatory masking
Masks unequivocally mitigate the spread of airborne pathogens. When the havoc being wreaked by COVID is still rampant, it is dumbfounding why universal mandatory masking would be removed in health-care settings — especially acute-care hospitals filled with the vulnerable sick, the immunocompromised, and those with significant pre-existing illness.
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