❤️ Love is: remote options and masks in healthcare settings⚕️Tell CDC to prioritize disabled folks in COVID vaccine policy 📣 Mandate Masks NY urges public comments at NYC Council Hearing
Mandate Masks NY condemns New York State’s decision to let the mask mandate expire for healthcare settings
Contents:
- Events, Actions, & Campaigns
- Pandemic field notes & “Living with the virus”
- In the News (virus & adjacent media, science, news, and op-eds)
- This is NOT Fine section (gaslighting & other outrages)
- He(a)rd Scuttlebutt (the pandemic grapevine)
USA Public Comment Period: Tell CDC to prioritize chronically ill, immunocompromised, and disabled folks in COVID vaccine policy
Instructions and information about the issue and submitting a public comment provided By Matthew Cortland: “If you're at higher risk from COVID-19 (because of chronic illness, or disability, immune compromise, or age) and you want the option of more than a single COVID-19 booster shot per year? Please tell that to CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), by 11:59PM ET on February 17th, 2023.”
https://www.patreon.com/posts/78379428
New York State USA Letter Campaign: Reinstate the Mask Mandate for Healthcare Settings in NY!
By Mandate Masks NY: Contact the Governor, Commissioner, and State Assemblymember and Senator to say that we need New York State to reinstate the mask mandate for healthcare settings!
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/reinstate-the-mask-mandate-for-healthcare-settings-in-ny
New York City USA: NYC Council Hearing led by the Committee on Health, jointly with the Committee on Hospitals and the Subcommittee on COVID Recovery and Resiliency, on the "Oversight - NYC’s Response to the Post-Holiday Surge in COVID-19."
Join MandateMasksNY.org in submitting public comments,
Valentine's Day, Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 1pm at City Hall.
https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1078295&GUID=1952E248-034B-42AA-8792-B9F406B5A36C&Options=info|&Search=
❤️ Love is: remote options and masks in healthcare settings. ❤️
Elissa sent this valentine card to San Francisco Supervisors as part of SDA’s Valentine Power Campaign for continued remote access to comment at San Francisco public meetings. While another public commenter, Joe, reported sending Constant Comment tea with the message to please vote no on the Motion to end remote testimony.
Senior and Disability Action is also encouraging use of the hashtags #KeepMasksInHealthCareCA and #KeepMasksInHealthCare as part of SDA’s Valentine’s Day awareness campaign on keeping masks in healthcare.
🗞️ In the news
Huffpost: New York Plans To Lift Mask Mandate In Medical Settings The decision marks the end of one of the state's few remaining COVID-19 safety protocols. By Shruti Rajkumar Feb 10, 2023 (“Ending the mask mandate in healthcare settings in the midst of continuing high COVID-19 transmission abandons the state’s responsibility for public health,” the spokesperson added. Opponents of the move say many people will have a hard time obtaining medical care without putting themselves at risk, especially since most of New York still has high transmission levels.)
Kaiser Health News: It’s ‘Telehealth vs. No Care’: Doctors Say Congress Risks Leaving Patients Vulnerable, By Sarah Jane Tribble, JANUARY 31, 2023 (Siegel and his colleagues at Dartmouth see remote care as a tool for helping chronically ill patients receive ongoing care and preventing expensive emergency episodes. It “allows patients to not be burdened by their illnesses,” he said. “It’s critical that we keep this going.”)
Reuters: Workers can't force safety agency to do inspections, court rules By Daniel Wiessner January 31, 2023 (A unanimous 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel said workers at a Maid-Rite Specialty Foods LLC meatpacking plant in Pennsylvania could not require the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to inspect the facility where they claimed they were at risk of contracting COVID-19. The 3rd Circuit panel said OSHA had no obligation to inspect the plant once an official concluded that Maid-Rite's policies did not pose an imminent danger to workers.)
Forbes: New York State Drops Face Mask Requirements For Hospitals, Health Care Facilities by Bruce Y. Lee Feb 12, 2023 (The Mandate Masks NY post indicated, “This decision puts all New Yorkers at risk, particularly people who are at higher risk and the most vulnerable. Ending the mask mandate in healthcare settings in the midst of continuing high Covid-19 transmission abandons the state’s responsibility for public health and endangers people’s lives.” If you want to find people who have weaker immune systems and thus are more susceptible to severe Covid-19, a healthcare facility is a good place to look. After all, most people don’t go to hospitals and other such healthcare settings just for the fun of it.)
This is NOT fine
Mandate Masks NY condemns New York State’s decision to let the mask mandate expire for healthcare settings
He(a)rd Scuttlebutt… pandemic grapevine 🍇🌱
It seems if you connect the dots, everything leads to the pandemic, and pandemic deniers lead to every other kind of disinformation spreader. On a podcast about someone’s experience in the culty pole dancing class company a decade ago, it turns out some of the people connected to those people were prominent in pushing anti-mask and covid contrarianism. Matthew Remski describes it this way: “Our podcast project has studied the ways in which high demand environments and aspirational yoga and wellness disciplines have seamlessly fed into the medical and spiritual libertarianism of covid contrarianism and anti-mask shit and anti-vax BS and whatever.”
“Healthcare settings are where people come to get well, not get infected.”
— Noha Aboelata, MD