Days before the nation's Public Health Emergency ended last week, signaling the end of the emergency pandemic era, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its masking recommendations for healthcare facilities. In the update, the CDC advised healthcare facilities to take a risk-based approach when it comes to universal masking in healthcare facilities.
However, aside from instances where healthcare workers are directly working with COVID-19 positive patients or a facility is grappling with a known outbreak, face masks will still no longer be required. The CDC does advise face masks to be considered when working with high-risk populations, but the public health agency does appear to be taking a case-by-case basis in terms of universal masking, depending on hospital admission levels as the CDC will longer track individual cases.
