COVID-19 Outbreak Information Updates (Reboot) [over 150.000,000 US cases (est.), 6,422,520 US hospitilizations, 1,148,691 US deaths.]

Doctors’ offices were the last place in Montana where Missoula resident Jenna James, who has long covid and other chronic conditions, had felt comfortable knowing others had to mask.


Then, like in nearly all states this spring, Montana health-care facilities ended their mask requirements. One clinic warned James when she called that it may not have masks on hand for staff, she recalled. A nurse at a hospital took 10 minutes to find one.

An unmasked receptionist coughed as James waited in a crowded waiting room recently to have blood drawn.


Days later, James woke up with a cough and sore throat and is bracing to test positive for the coronavirus.

“I literally have to choose between lifesaving medical care and exposure to covid, which really isn’t a choice,” said James, 42. “It’s a high-risk situation being forced on me with little to no ability to consent.”


With the era of government-mandated masking at restaurants, grocery stores and schools long gone, hospitals and doctors’ offices were the last to carry the most visible reminders of the three-year-old pandemic.

But regulators and some infectious-disease specialists have concluded universal masking is no longer essential in medical settings, prompting one of the starkest returns to pre-covid life.


Oregon, Washington and California were among the last states to lift such requirements in April, with Massachusetts set to follow when the state and federal public health emergency ends May 11.


The rollback of restrictions has had consequences: After a recent covid outbreak at a Kaiser Permanente hospital in northern California, the Santa Rosa facility restored its mask mandate on April 21, nearly three weeks after lifting it……….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/05/01/mask-mandate-hospital-covid/