Nurses, researchers, and workplace safety officers worry new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might reduce protection against the coronavirus and other airborne pathogens in hospitals.
A CDC advisory committee has been updating its 2007 standards for infection control in hospitals this year. Many health care professionals and scientists expressed outrage after the group released a draft of its proposals in June.
"Health care facilities are where some of the most vulnerable people in our population have to frequent or stay," said Gwendolyn Hill, a research intern at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, after the committee's presentation. She said N95 masks, ventilation, and air-purifying technology can lower rates of covid transmission within hospital walls and "help ensure that people are not leaving sicker than they came.
Their conclusion runs contrary to the CDC's 2022 report, which found that an N95 mask cuts the odds of testing positive for the coronavirus by 83%, compared with 66% for surgical masks and 56% for cloth masks. It also excludes a large clinical trial published in 2017 finding that N95 masks were far superior to surgical masks in protecting health workers from influenza infections.
Researchers and occupational safety experts were also perplexed by how the committee categorized airborne pathogens. A surgical mask, rather than an N95, was suggested as protection for a category they created for "common, endemic" viruses that spread over short distances, and "for which individuals and communities are expected to have some immunity.
Virologists said the committee's categories hold little water, biologically speaking. A pathogen's mode of spreading isn't affected by how common it is; common viruses can still harm vulnerable populations; and many viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, can travel significant distances on microscopic droplets suspended in the air.
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