Matt GoddenSep 28, 2023

Anyone working in any medical context should be required to wear a #Mask whenever they are in the workplace.

"Until when?” you say?

Until they retire.

Just like spay painters, welders, stone kitchen fitters, medical folks need to wear their PPE whenever they are on the job.

For ever.

Brought to you by the sheer horror of watching nurses cheering at not having to wear masks around patients, as mask-mandates are lifted.

Show threadJohn GordonSep 28, 2023
@metaning There’s a cost to that policy. More nurses leaving nursing. Earlier retirement for physicians. Most patients hate it.
Show threadMatt GoddenSep 28, 2023
@jgordon true, but my take on that would be:
- the costs are affordable by increasing progressive tax rates.
- the nurses you lose are probably Lucy Letbys in waiting.
- increasing physician turnover is probably a good thing overall, given statistics about how older physicians tend to be resistant to newer, better techniques.
- patients rarely like participating in medicine, so no real change there.
Show threadSallyStrangeSep 28, 2023
@metaning You didn't even mention the cost of NOT having medical staff mask, to wit: nurses and doctors becoming disabled or dead. @jgordon
Show threadJohn GordonSep 28, 2023
@SallyStrange @metaning That’s true, I was just explaining some costs of compliance. Is there anywhere policy stops health care workers from wearing a mask if they choose?
Show threadMatt GoddenSep 28, 2023

@jgordon @SallyStrange Problem is that public health doesn’t work when it’s based on choice in the context of contagious conditions. And the bigger issue, is that (some percentage of) health care workers don’t seem to want to wear masks. That’s where we get to the bigger issue of “your freedom ends, the moment it restricts the freedom of another”.

If an immuno-compromised person can’t go to the dentist, because the dentist won’t make their receptionist wear a mask…?

Show threadJohn GordonSep 28, 2023

@metaning @SallyStrange Ideally patients with immune disorders on problem list would be flagged so that receptionists can wear a mask. It would require software changes to the scheduling system and that requires an act of a deity. In practice patients would need to self-identify.

Of course most of the real value comes from the patient wearing a high quality (not cloth) mask.

Show threadSallyStrange
@jgordon @metaning how's that "ideal"? Ideal implies there are few improvements to be made.
Sep 28, 2023 at 3:24pmWeb
Show threadJohn GordonSep 28, 2023

@SallyStrange @metaning

I should have said "Ideal way to flag a patient". So only "ideal" in the context of flagging a vulnerable patient in a way that would be visible to receptionist.

Show threadSallyStrangeSep 28, 2023
@jgordon I'm starting to think I should just insult you because that's what you're doing to us. What's up? Why would you think that my question "how is this ideal" referred ONLY to the method of flagging a patient, rather than to the potential for infection of patient, dentist, receptionist, and other patients? @metaning