Practice Management Alert

Know why your organization should spring for the most effective measures against the coronavirus.

Many physician offices and other providers issued guidelines and surgical masks to their staff at the beginning of the public health emergency (PHE), March 2020, and are more or less abiding by those same guidelines. However, experts now better understand the ways that the virus that causes COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, is transmitted, and providers should update their office guidelines accordingly. But before you Google current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations, keep reading.

Although the current recommendations issued by the CDC include healthcare personnel being prioritized for vaccination, they also say that most healthcare personnel only need surgical masks. Many experts across the scientific and public health spectrum disagree.

Read Why the Experts Urge Better Protection

More than a dozen prominent scientists wrote a letter to asking the agency to update its guidance on mask wearing. The signatories write that government agencies need to acknowledge the ease with which the SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted through the air.

Right now, the CDC recommends reserving N95 respirators for healthcare workers who are performing “aerosol-generating” procedures. The signatories say the science demonstrates that healthcare workers are being sickened because the precautions they are taking — which are consistent with current CDC guidance — are inadequate.

“CDC continues to recommend surgical masks for most healthcare workers and limits the use of NIOSH-certified respirators only to direct patient care or aerosol generating procedures with COVID-19 patients. It is now well-documented that healthcare workers in non-COVID-19 patient care and support positions are also at high risk of infection and should be wearing respirators,” the signatories say.

Know That Proper Respirators Are Indeed Available

Although N95 and equivalent respirators were inaccessible earlier in the pandemic, at this point, there are millions of newly manufactured respirators awaiting purchase. The signatories suggest that employers are not utilizing the supply because many are “reluctant to buy from new producers or believing there is no need for their use.” The scientists feel strongly that workers can and should be better protected, even though these respirators are more expensive than the surgical masks currently recommended.

They also note that Black people and people of color have already suffered some of the highest rates of infection, and constitute much of the “essential” workforce, especially as people providing direct care. The signatories suggest that the CDC updating its guidance to make sure all healthcare workers can access respirators would help keep healthcare workers and the general public safer — and minimize further illness and death from COVID-19 in communities that have already suffered greatly.

At the time of publication, the CDC has chosen not to change their recommendations.

“For reasons supported by science, comfort, costs, and practicality, CDC does not recommend the use of N95 respirators for protection against COVID-19 by the general public,” said Jason McDonald, spokesperson for the CDC.

Look for Possible Science-Backed Changes to OSHA Rules

Relatedly, in an executive order, President Joe Biden gave the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) a deadline of March 15 to revise its standards to meet current scientific understanding of SARS-CoV-2. The agency is tasked with keeping workers safe by evaluating and enforcing workplace safety measures, and Biden has asked the agency to sharpen its focus on making sure workplaces are as safe as possible, with regard to COVID-19.

One of the main tasks Biden issued to OSHA is deciding whether masks are temporarily necessary in workplaces.

The letter writers include a challenge to this executive order, requiring OSHA to issue an emergency standard on COVID-19 that “recognizes the importance of aerosol inhalation, includes requirements to assess risks of exposure, and requires implementation of control measures following a hierarchy of controls. The standard should address requirements for effective respiratory protection for all healthcare and other workers at high risk of exposure to COVID-19.”

Resource: Read the letter (and see the science cited) here www.cidrap.umn.edu/sites/default/files/public/downloads/immediate_action_to_address_inhalation_exposure_to_sars-cov-2_2142021.pdf.