Taking Mask Guidelines Backwards

These excerpts are from the Daily Beast on June 30, 2023: Why the CDC’s New Mask Guideline Proposal May Actually Imperil Frontline Workers.  Please read the entire article - you won't believe it.

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"In March 2020, as lockdowns gripped the world and the COVID-19 pandemic was officially in full swing, Lisa Brosseau, a national expert on respiratory protection and infectious diseases at the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, was pleading with the CDC to 'follow the science.'

"HICPAC will meet in August and may vote on proposed updated guidelines for infection control—and it may end up exacerbating concerns rather than assuaging them. An informational slide deck outlining the committee’s proposed updated guidelines, obtained and reviewed by The Daily Beast, makes little mention of aerosol transmission of viruses, and cites what experts say are flawed studies to suggest there is no difference in the protection offered between respirators like N95s and surgical masks.

"If accepted, the guidelines could enshrine unsafe practices for health-care workers at a time when the industry is already suffering from critical staffing shortages.

"In the section discussing pathogen transmission, there is only a cursory mention of aerosols and airborne transmission, but no real discussion of the types of protection needed for different types of viruses. More shocking, however, is the Evidence Review at the end of the slide deck, in which the studies cited by HICPAC as supporting evidence of its conclusions do not appear to be as robust and persuasive as many public health experts expected.

"Dr. Robert Harrison, an occupational medicine specialist and a clinical professor at the University of California, San Francisco, told The Daily Beast the evidence cited in the slide deck guidelines flies in the face of  'clear science.'

"Citing 13 different studies of laboratory-confirmed viral respiratory infections, a summary chart at the end of the presentation concludes there is 'no difference between surgical masks and N95s in preventing respiratory infections.'"

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Why would you deliberately want to sabotage COVID mitigations? After all we've already gone through, instead of progressing in its COVID policies and decisions, it sounds like the CDC is actually regressing, and the American people will suffer even more as a result.