Posted on 05/02/2023 5:28:20 PM PDT by nickcarraway
For the first time since March 2020, Tufts Medical Center has no COVID-19 patients admitted to the hospital. Same for Boston Medical Center!
And for those who've longed to be free from COVID-era rules and mandates, the moment of liberation is at hand: On May 11, state and federal public health emergencies will expire, ending almost all of the rules which were put in place to slow COVID.
"We are no longer in an emergency," says Dr. Shira Doron, chief of Infection Control for Tufts Medical Center. She says that means it's OK to ease vaccine rules for travelers and drop mask mandates where they linger, even in healthcare facilities.
"We can learn from the experience of our colleagues across the country, the vast majority of whom have been without masks in healthcare, many of them for quite a few months now -- seven months - and not seeing any change," says Doron.
But Dr. Lara Jirmanus of Harvard Medical School says "COVID is still a serious threat in this country and around the world," and dropping masks in hospitals would put millions of us at risk. "Severely ill immunocompromised people, even after COVID vaccines and boosters, can still risk serious infection and death due to COVID, and for that reason, it is essential to try to prevent them from being exposed to COVID," she says.
That's why State Senate Elder Affairs Committee chair Pat Jehlen and her House counterpart have written to the state Department of Public Health urging reconsideration of their decision to drop the healthcare mask mandate next week.
"The Hippocratic oath says 'first, do no harm.'" notes Jehlen. "This is such a small intervention; it's something people are used to."
You can feel the frustration of Dr. Jirmanus and other skeptics of the ongoing phase-out of COVID-19 precautions. And that's nothing compared with the anxiety of the vulnerable who see mortal threat in the cascading fall of those public health dominoes.
But their concerns seem to stand little chance of slowing the rush toward pre-covid normalcy - for better, or for worse.
Jon Keller is Political Analyst for WBZ-TV News, and his "Keller @ Large" reports on a wide range of topics are regularly featured during WBZ-TV News at 5 and 6 p.m. Keller's commentaries are also seen weekday mornings at 5:30 a.m. on WBZ This Morning.
Shirley you jest.
*** For the first time since March 2020, Tufts Medical Center has no COVID-19 patients admitted to the hospital. Same for Boston Medical Center!***
So they finally admitted the quiet part out loud, that they weren’t wanting to flatten the curve, but wanted to keep emergency measures in place until NOONE was hospitalized with the SARS-CoV-2 (Wuhan) virus.
Effing a-holes. I despise them all. Power hungry jerks.
Two weeks ago I went to a medical facility and face diapers were optional instead of required. Pleasant change.
Interesting. My brother in south Fla needs a liver transplant and the transplant doc in Miami told him that he’d better not come there for a transplant because the ward was full of Covid patients and most die before leaving.......this was 2 weeks ago........
Still people in NYC fearfully wearing masks even thought they are 100% useless and likely do more harm than good.
I last wore a mask nearly two years ago when it was still mandated on NYC commuter trains. Before the mandate was lifted, I stopped wearing it and noticed that no conductors were hassling me about it. Also, I got the additional bonus of sometimes getting my own row as other frightened commuters would not sit next to me since I was unmasked.
I lost a lot of respect for my fellow Americans during this period. So many submissive cowards in this country.
For those that are still wearing masks, covid will never be over.
Are excess deaths still increasing?
My daughter is the only one in our family that is still wearing a mask on occasion. She was in Brooklyn during the lockdowns. I tried to tell her that her experience of CoVid in her community there was FAR DIFFERENT than what we witnessed here in flyover country. Vastly different.
I will say she is the only one who hasn’t caught it, at least, not that she’s aware of. She thinks it’s because of her mask and not getting near people. While the distancing may be part of the reason, I think she’s just been incredibly fortunate.
I was never worried or concerned about catching CoVid, because I think that, for the most part, it was going after the low-hanging fruit first. Then with the variants, it was going to hit more of us. It’s been a year since I had it, and my case was VERY MILD. I’ve definitely had worse ailments than this damn thing they are using to batter us with.
I think you’re right about the submissive cowards. We all learned more about our fellow man than we really wanted to know. I lost respect for many people. Out of congeniality, I have maintained my relationships, but they are definitely more strained than they used to be.
i dunno what we just went through, but it was nasty- exhausting- chilled all the while- throwing up- wicked “D”-weak- sneezing etc took the home tests just incase it mighta been covid- but it wasn’t- took 2 tests to make sure- got over it and wham, came down with it again 3 days later-
we had it- maybe a couple of times- got in in march when it first came out- didn’t get tested, but pretty sure it was covid- knocked the stuffings out of us- then got omicron later- was kinda bad, but have had worse flues really- we did get tested the second time- and sure enough- we all had it-
with a near 100% survival rate overall, we weren’t too worried even though we were in higher risk category- none of us are morbidly overweight, and don’t have serious ongoing diseases like diabetes- but do have a few conditions which made it kidna iffy- but still- the odds were really good for survival so no big deal-
See, this is my thing. My whole family has been so afraid of CoVid, and I’ve been saying all along that there are PLENTY of pathogens out there that could make us equally sick or worse than the Wuhan flu. Your recent illness is a perfect example. Probably more awful than CoVid, what you went through.
yup- the wuhan was really bad though for only a very small subset of folks- elderly overweight people with 4 or more comorbidities- That’s really it- although some ‘healthy’ people died- we don’t know if they were truly healthy as many folks don’t get regularly tested- and could have had underlying diseases they didn’t even know they had- while some truly healthy people died- it’s no different than the flue really as even regular flu kills some healthy people seemingly randomly as well-
the overall survivability of Covid 19 itself was like 99.4% or something like that- about on par with flu- a bit worse perhaps=- but still plenty survivable for the majority of people
We will never know the TRUE numbers for folks who died FROM covid- as they counted all manner of deaths as having died covid, when in reality many died WITH covid, and did not die FROM covid-
We had covid twice that we are almost certain of- maybe more- it sucked, but we’ve had worse flues before really- one so bad i ended up in hospital fighting to breathe- i never got that bad with the covid-
Now there’s a push to have MA
governor Maura Healey to keep
mask mandates in place at health care
facilities, according to Ch 25 Boston
>>Tufts Medical Center
Was there last year for a vitrectomy.
Blood filled up my left eye. They
drained it and refilled it with
vitreous fluid. Vision restored in
full.
Very glad you are doing better.
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