Faust also pointed to transparent masks as a better solution. The solution, he said, is not to forgo masks, but to switch to transparent masks, which are available but underused. Tara Gregorio, president of the Massachusetts Senior Care Association, a nursing home trade group, affirmed that nursing facilities “continue to follow robust infection prevention protocols.” They will work with the Department of Public Health, she said in an e-mail, “to implement the federal guidance in a way that continues to balance the safety and well-being of our residents with their overwhelming desire to once again be able to see the faces of their dedicated caregivers and communicate more freely.”īarnett acknowledged that people with hearing loss have difficulty understanding speech when they cannot see a person’s mouth. “I don’t think there’s any question we should be continuing masking for the foreseeable future,” Lanzikos said. It’s saying, ‘go slowly,’” said Lanzikos, the former executive director of North Shore Elder Services.īut he cautioned he would oppose any premature scaling back of the “very basic, very easy preventive measure” of masking. That would encompass virtually all nursing home residents, said Paul Lanzikos, coordinator of Dignity Alliance Massachusetts, an all-volunteer organization working to improve long-term care. Even in lower transmission areas, the CDC still recommends masks during facility outbreaks and when caring for high-risk patients and those who are moderately to severely immunocompromised. One advocate for the elderly noted that, if read closely, the guidelines clearly provide protection for nursing home residents.
“Although SARS-CoV-2 has not disappeared, the situation is clearly different than it was last winter,” the statement said.
In a statement, the CDC said the new guidance helps reduce the burden on the health care workforce, “and helps to improve quality of life among long-term care residents,” as well as reflecting the vaccine and infection-induced immunity in the population and the availability of treatments. You could make a better case to relax anywhere except nursing homes.” there’s a sense at the highest levels of politics that we’re just kind of done with trying really hard.”īarnett, who coauthored a study showing how vaccinating staff protects nursing home residents, added, “It makes even less sense to me to be permissive with nursing homes, which is the most vulnerable place in the pandemic. Chan School of Public Health, who said he was “not too thrilled” with the CDC’s changes. Barnett, a health services researcher at the Harvard T.H. “We’re in a strange place in the US,” said Dr. Those rules will stay in effect unless the state changes them the department is currently reviewing the CDC recommendations. The guidelines will have no immediate effect in most of the country, including all of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, where transmission remains at the highest level.Īnd the CDC doesn’t have the final word: In Massachusetts, the state Department of Public Health requires patients, residents, staff, vendors, and visitors to wear masks in all health care settings. It won’t happen soon, though, experts agreed. “But in health care, we’re kind of frozen in time.” Of course there’s good reason for that, given the vulnerability of patients, but at some point, health care providers will want to move back toward pre-COVID policies, she said. Shenoy, associate chief of infection control at Massachusetts General Hospital. “Every other sector of society has changed” in its approach to the pandemic, said Dr. Others noted that masking cannot continue indefinitely and said it makes sense to set parameters for when to pull back. (The CDC categories are “high,” “substantial,” “moderate,” and “low.”) He noted that the new recommendations would allow universal masking to end in regions with “substantial” transmission. To do so in nursing homes is a hostile act towards a vulnerable population, given current ground conditions,” he wrote. “It’s one thing to de-escalate pandemic mitigation in low-risk settings.
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