American Hospitals Bring Back Covid-Era Mask Mandates for Patients and Visitors

 

Across the country, Covid-era mask mandates have begun to return to public places, causing outrage among freedom-loving citizens.

An entire hospital system has just issued a new mask mandate for all patients and visitors across multiple locations.

A public subway is also pressuring passengers to wear face coverings.

One hospital system in Monterey, California, which treats nearly 400,000 patients a year, reinstated its face mask mandate for visitors and patients this week.

Meanwhile, several counties in San Francisco’s Bay Area have also brought back mask rules in healthcare facilities.

The hospitals argue that the mask mandates are returning to tackle flu season.

Earlier this week, New York City’s health department also brought back recommendations for people to mask up while using public transport as the nation heads into winter.

However, the new recommendations in Monterey and NYC prompted furious reactions from many residents.

Many demanded health officials “move on” from the tyranny of the Covid era.

On an Instagram post shared by the NYC health department that said “Mask up, NYC!,” one New Yorker declared “tired of this.”

Another commenter added “This is a joke right? Masks don’t work.”

Another wrote: “You’re still pushing this?”

And in response to the face mask mandate at a California hospital, one resident told KSBW news:

“I think it’s good for everybody to kind of go back to normal and move on.”

The mandates come as the US heads into the annual flu season.

It tends to start in October and peak through December and February.

Officials in California said the mandate was especially important because of the falling uptake of the Covid and flu vaccines.

However, official surveillance shows there is yet to be a surge in the flu, Covid, or other respiratory viruses this year.

The test positivity rate for flu peaked at eight percent on August 10, data shows, but in the latest week had fallen to 6.6 percent.

Revealing the mask mandate for the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, its infection specialist Dr. Martha Blum said:

“Now is the time to really make these preparations and be reminded of what we can do to prevent things from really taking off at a sharp increase.

“As we like to say, Noah built the ark before the flood.”

A major peer-reviewed by the Cochrane Institute found they make “little to no difference” to someone’s risk of catching Covid.

At the same time, some research suggests Covid measures like masking and social distancing may put people — especially children — more at risk of severe infections.

Studies show that masking robs children of exposure to diseases early in life, which means their immune systems may not develop correctly.

Some have reacted positively to the news, however.

One online commenter said:: “Immunocompromised here.

“It means a lot to us when people wear a mask.”

A second said, “Thank you for this messaging!”

“Wish this was normal,” a third added.

“Let’s take care of our health and each other please.”

Flu surveillance by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that the proportion of flu tests that detected the virus has remained level for the last three weeks that data is available, at 0.6 percent.

The CDC also publishes a map of the impact of flu by state.

The map currently shows almost every state has minimal activity of the virus.

Only three — Indiana, Ohio, and Virginia — have low activity.

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