Around New England

Keep Masks In Hospitals and Doctor’s Offices, Two Dem State Reps Say

May 4, 2023

Two Massachusetts Democratic state representatives are asking the state’s public health agency to keep requiring people to wear masks in hospitals and other medical settings despite a dwindling number of coronavirus cases.
 
“We strongly believe that masking is an effective and relatively inexpensive protective measure to protect both the workforce and those being treated in hospitals, nursing facilities, and other medical offices,” said state Senator Pat Jehlen of Somerville and state Representative Thomas Stanley of Waltham, in an April 25 letter to the state’s public health commissioner, Robert Goldstein, according to State House News Service (via New England Cable News).

“We are all aware of the devastation wrought by COVID-19 among older people, especially those residing in nursing facilities and other congregate care and congregate living sites along with the caregivers employed there,” the letter continues.
 
Jehlen and Stanley suggested the mandate should be extended “at least until a time when the rate of booster utilization increases to a higher level, and we can be more confident that frail older adults and other vulnerable residents will be more protected from contracting COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.”

On April 25, the most recent date for which data is available, there were 56 people in Massachusetts hospitalized primarily for COVID-19, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
 
A spokesman for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health told State House News Service that the agency has received the letter but hasn’t yet responded to it.
 
The mask requirement is currently scheduled to expire Thursday, May 11, which is when the state plans to end the declared public health emergency.

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