Patients & Vulnerable Populations Pandemically Left in the Dark

By GRACE CORDOVANO PhD, BCPA To be honest, the United States blew it on the mask front. From a public health, caregiver and patient safety, as well as community transmission standpoint, we are at least 3 months late to game. Anytime a brand new virus that humanity does not have any immunity to makes an appearance, is highly contagious, starts rapidly infecting people as well as the doctors and nurses caring for them, hospitalizing, and killing them in concerning numbers across the globe, we should enable every proactive safety measure at our disposal. The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the US was on January 20, 2020. The general public and the millions of people who are considered at high-risk for complications from COVID-19 were advised that wearing masks in public was unnecessary. Many individuals were shamed and called out for wearing masks in public, being directly blamed for personal protective equipment (PPE) shortages on the front-lines. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of masks and PPE are exported out of the country by brokers daily. People out in public have been mocked for a spectrum of reasons, being criticized as to why masks were being worn, used to run errands, and for removing them incorrectly. On April 4, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommended that the general public wear cloth face masks in public where social distancing may be difficult, such as at the grocery store or pharmacy, especially in areas where cases of the infecti...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: COVID-19 Health Policy coronavirus Grace Cordovano masks Pandemic Source Type: blogs