The Maryland Department of Health is urging medical centers, hospitals, clinics, outpatient facilities and long-term care homes to implement universal masking after respiratory hospitalizations exceeded 10 people per 100,000 residents in the state last month.
MDH guidelines state that medical facilities should switch to universal masking and other protective measures like optimized ventilation when hospitalizations get that high. However, according to Johns Hopkins, University of Maryland Medical System, Mercy Medical System and other organizations’ websites, the policies have yet to change.
That is concerning to some groups like COVID Safe Maryland, an organization focused on immune safety in the state.
“If you get COVID, while you’re in the hospital, you’re twice as likely to die of it than if you got it somewhere else, or came in with it,” said Roselie Bright, an epidemiologist with COVID Safe Maryland. “That’s why we think it’s especially important to protect vulnerable people because they are there in the healthcare space.”
