In hospitals, a new debate over masks

Also: Foggy glasses boost demand for laser eye surgery during pandemic [View in browser](    [❤️]( January 31, 2022 Hello CommonHealth reader, A tweet from [Don Milton]( — an expert on airborne transmission of COVID-19 and masking — recently got me thinking. He [tweeted disapprovingly]( about Massachusetts General Hospital’s [mask policy]( saying the hospital “is making patients, visitors and staff remove their personal N95 and don a surgical mask," adding that MGH is "one of the most backward" hospitals in the country. I wanted to know if others agreed (since MGH is far from alone in enforcing this mask policy and far from alone in [getting pushback](. As I chatted with people, I soon came to see this issue as a microcosm of our current moment in the pandemic. Experts told me that finally — two years into COVID — we are making progress on encouraging people to use high-quality masks. They said we’re at a “tipping point” … there’s a “sea change” happening … the “White House is starting to listen.” (The Biden administration has announced it’s distributing [400 million free N95s](. The CDC acknowledges [N95 masks]( are far superior to cloth.) Seeing this, some medical experts are advocating for places like MGH to update their mask policies, citing work by hospital epidemiologists like Michael Klompas at Brigham and Women’s. He's documented COVID [transmission inside hospitals]( when both parties are wearing surgical masks. (MGH declined to comment.) I spoke with one MGH patient who delayed care and went elsewhere rather than remove her N95 and replace it with a surgical mask. But when I spoke to other doctors at Mass General Brigham, the network that includes both hospitals, they emphatically disagreed. They said many patients are reaching a point where they’re tired of masking. And some staff members are hitting their limit, too, especially with the less-than-comfortable N95s worn around COVID-positive patients. They said they can’t imagine tightening the masking policy any further, especially as omicron wanes and people push to return to something resembling “normal.” The division on masks feels like it mirrors a broader societal division that crystalized around omicron: for some, the highly contagious variant offered reason for renewed caution and stricter protocols. But it led others to accept the virus as inevitable and declare themselves “over COVID.” Stuck in the middle are hospitals and public health institutions serving people on both sides of the spectrum. 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