Op-Ed: Now that the CDC has dropped masking, a plea to doctors and hospitals

With a one-two punch, the Biden administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have tossed tens of millions of Americans at high risk of death and disability from COVID into a sea of contagion without any clear guidance for infection prevention and control. After President Biden’s thoughtless remark that “the pandemic is over,” the CDC announced days later a quiet undermining of COVID protections in hospitals and nursing homes: the end of universal masking recommendations for healthcare settings. Ordinary Americans who cannot afford to be ill — and that is truly tens of millions of us — now have to appeal directly to America’s working medical professionals: Please make your medical offices safe for us to enter by using N95 masks and top-rated HEPA air filtration. And if you understand how much we value our health, if you are among the medical professionals who have been grieving over the nation’s pandemic failures, if you remain committed to preventing infections, please work with colleagues inside your prestigious professional associations to promote clear and effective infection control standards. We can’t let American medical standards drop so low that our hospitals and clinics become the places where we get sick rather than well.