Calls for a return of Covid face masks are growing louder amid rising virus rates and the rise of a heavily mutated new variant.
A college in Atlanta has become the first college since the government declared the pandemic over to mandate masks for students and staff just days after classes began.
Morris Brown College, a private liberal arts college, is requiring students and staff to wear face masks in hallways and lecture halls for two weeks amid “reports of positive cases among students.”
Officials also urged students to maintain social distancing and banned all parties and large student gatherings for two weeks.
Meanwhile, in Seattle, state doctors and public health experts have called for face coverings to be made mandatory again in all healthcare facilities in an editorial published by the American College of Physicians (ACP).
They argue that hospitalized patients are at greater risk of dying or becoming seriously ill from Covid and would benefit from the reduction[d] “Risk of in-hospital Covid infections among patients and medical staff.”
A worker offers a face mask to a man at the Chinese Hospital in San Francisco in August 2021 during the pandemic
People wearing masks wait to enter Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida in July 2020
The number of hospital admissions due to Covid is increasing in the US and has risen by about 14 percent in a week to 10,300 admissions every seven days
Morris Brown College in Atlanta became the first college since the government declared the pandemic over to mandate masks for students and staff just a week after classes began
The ten experts – from the Seattle & King County Department of Health and the University of Washington – said we should “find ways to adapt to this new reality” rather than “take unnecessary risks to patient and provider health.”
The discussion about masking in public has gained traction after the CDC said it is monitoring the new Covid variant BA.2.86.
The number of Covid cases in Georgia has risen for three straight weeks, but overall the number of infections and hospital admissions remains low.
Meanwhile, the paper was likely written before the new variants came to light and before Covid-related hospitalization rates in the US began to rise.
A former FDA chief said today he was “quite concerned” about the variant known as BA.X, BA.2.86 or Pirola, which is “heavily mutated” and therefore likely better able to withstand the immune system of those who have been vaccinated or previously Infected people escape.
dr Scott Gottlieb acknowledged there is no evidence the variant is any more deadly than older versions of the virus, but the number of Covid deaths in the US has already started to rise, although it remains at near historic lows.
However, US hospitalizations and deaths are now increasing, although they are starting from historic lows and are still well below this time last year.
The article, published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the academic medical journal of the ACP, said there were “reasons for the integration of precautionary measures,” including “the continuing burden of disease among those most at risk of severe Covid-19 19, the large proportion of transmission through asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic cases, uncertainty about the future course of the pandemic and the impact of post-Covid-19 diseases.”
Statements made in the Journal do not necessarily reflect the views of the AKP.
Researchers recognized that Covid cases have fallen dramatically since the pandemic due to vaccines, antivirals and increased community immunity, but said “severe consequences” are still emerging due to the virus.
They argued that patients in hospitals were far more at risk because of their age and underlying medical conditions.
The authors added, “As we accept the benefits of increased mask wearing in clinical settings, we should find ways to adapt to this new reality rather than taking unnecessary risks to patient and provider health.”
“Perhaps we could find ways to improve masked communication rather than removing masks to improve relationship building and increase perceived empathy.”
Patients should also be able to “require their carers to wear a mask if they deem it appropriate,” the comment said.
The authors said masking could take different approaches, for example in different healthcare facilities in specific areas such as transplant, oncology and geriatric wards where the risk to patients is highest, but cautioned that it was a “less desirable” option be.
This could also be done during certain months of the year when the respiratory season is at its peak, depending on where the hospital is located in the US, or when the population’s exposure to respiratory viruses reaches levels deemed too high.
They refer to Washington state, where healthcare organizations decided to expand universal masking in patient areas, giving individual facilities “the flexibility to tailor policies to their own unique spaces.”
When Biden ended the national Covid emergency, the Covid measures should have been dropped for good.
But some British scientists – known for making dire predictions at the start of the pandemic – are so concerned about the new Covid variants that they have advised people to go back into masks.
Masks have long been a controversial Covid strategy due to the lack of clear evidence of their effectiveness.
One of the most comprehensive meta-analyses on face coverings found that masks made “little to no difference” on Covid infection or mortality rates in the community.
The mask debate first turned sour in 2020, when health officials were at odds over their effectiveness.
The then NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci said in 2020 that masks “don’t offer the perfect protection that people think.”
He later suggested that people should wear masks as a sign of “respect” to others. He admitted to lying to the public about the effectiveness of masks to prevent panic buying and to stockpile masks for health workers.
The agency continues to recommend that Americans wear masks in places with high transmission rates, such as on public transportation.
Critics of masks claim they have hindered communication and children’s development and progress in school.
The winter surge in RSV and influenza has been attributed in part to mandatory face coverings, which prevented children from gaining natural immunity to other diseases.