This is true. Before the pandemic, masks were used in a very disposable fashion. If you worked in the OR, you would put on a mask when entering an operating room and discard it when you left, which is what we still do with gloves. We were always taking masks on and off throughout our shifts. And it was for keeping a sterile surgical environment in the operating suite while the patient was open, among other things, and didn’t really have anything to do with stopping the spread of airborne viruses.
Now, we wear the same mask for our entire shifts. That’s objectively less beneficial for both the patients and healthcare providers. We are wearing the same mask around dozens of different patients every day, increasing the risk of us getting sick, and could potentially increase the risk that the patient gets sick because they’re being tended to by a healthcare worker that’s been wearing the same dirty mask all day.
And don’t get me started on N95s. The artificially manufactured N95 shortage caused healthcare facilities to ration N95 masks, and we were given 1 mask that we have to re-use, for MONTHS, any time we interacted with a Covid or Flu patient. We were given paper bags and sharpies to label them, and when we weren’t using the mask we would put them back in our locker until we needed to use it again. It wasn’t uncommon to have to re-use the same N95 mask several times a day. Before the pandemic, we used N95 masks disposably the same way we had used regular masks. We would wear them for one patient interaction and throw them away. Boxes of N95s would be sitting outside a flu patient’s room. That would soon change to us having to go to the nurse supervisor’s office and sign paperwork just to get a N95.
I don’t know if anyone put this together, but at the start of the ‘pandemic’, the FDA and/or CDC revoked licenses from a bunch of N95 manufacturers and shut them all down (supposedly because they weren’t up to regulation). Next thing you know, there’s a N95 shortage and hospitals are desperate to get their hands on them and start rationing them severely. It’s a load of BS.
This is true. Before the pandemic, masks were used in a very disposable fashion. If you worked in the OR, you would put on a mask when entering an operating room and discard it when you left, which is what we still do with gloves. We were always taking masks on and off throughout our shifts. And it was for keeping a sterile surgical environment in the operating suite while the patient was open, among other things, and didn’t really have anything to do with stopping the spread of airborne viruses.
Now, we wear the same mask for our entire shifts. That’s objectively less beneficial for both the patients and healthcare providers. We are wearing the same mask around dozens of different patients every day, increasing the risk of us getting sick, and could potentially increase the risk that the patient gets sick because they’re being tended to by a healthcare worker that’s been wearing the same dirty mask all day.
And don’t get me started on N95s. The artificially manufactured N95 shortage caused healthcare facilities to ration N95 masks, and we were given 1 mask that we have to re-use, for MONTHS, any time we interacted with a Covid or Flu patient. We were given paper bags and sharpies to label them, and when we weren’t using the mask we would put them back in our locker until we needed to use it again. It wasn’t uncommon to have to re-use the same N95 mask several times a day. Before the pandemic, we used N95 masks disposably the same way we had used regular masks. We would wear them for one patient interaction and throw them away. Boxes of N95s would be sitting outside a flu patient’s room. That would soon change to us having to go to the nurse supervisor’s office and sign paperwork just to get a N95.
I don’t know if anyone put this together, but at the start of the ‘pandemic’, the FDA and/or CDC revoked licenses from a bunch of N95 manufacturers and shut them all down (supposedly because they weren’t up to regulation). Next thing you know, there’s a N95 shortage and hospitals are desperate to get their hands on them and start rationing them severely. It’s a load of BS.