CDC updates Covid-19 guidance to allow patients wear N95s

The nation’s public health agency now says on its website that people should “use the most protective form” of masks. While facilities can continue to offer patients surgical masks, facilities “should allow the use of a clean mask or respirator with higher level protection by people who chose that option based on their individual preference.”

The CDC didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Matthew Cortland, a disability rights advocate who has been pushing for this change, applauded the update.

“CDC has taken an important step to limit the harm their infection prevention and control recommendations are doing to those of us who require health care,” Cortland said. “No one should be told by a hospital that they must remove a highly protective mask, like an N95.”

Many hospitals around the country ask patients to remove their N95s and replace them with less protective surgical masks, POLITICO found. That story spurred U.S. health officials to consider notifying Americans how to report facilities that they believe endanger them. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which regulates hospitals, wants patients to report facilities that request they remove their masks and replace them with surgical ones.

Health facilities, like all indoor spaces, have facilitated Covid-19 transmission throughout the pandemic. A record number of hospitalized patients in the U.S. were infected with Covid during the Omicron wave. Hospital staff and visitors often wear surgical masks — in accordance with CDC guidelines — but such masks put people at higher risk of catching Covid, according to studies, including some done by the CDC. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert who advises the Biden administration, earlier told POLITICO that he had “no doubt” such masks contributed to the transmission.

N95s are some of the best respiratory protection available against airborne viruses, including Covid-19. Many people are several months from their last Covid vaccine shot, and while those shots remain highly protective for most people against severe disease, they don’t prevent infection. Healthy as well as immunocompromised people rely on N95s to stop infections.

Though public health experts have urged the Biden administration for over a year to universally recommend N95s, the CDC has not done so. The agency and the White House have argued that even in hospitals, surgical masks provide sufficient protection in many situations, despite CDC research showing that N95s provide superior protection. The agency also says the public can wear cloth masks, which it found are the least effective in stopping Covid transmission.

“CDC’s choice not to set highly protective masks as the default standard of protection disproportionately harms chronically ill, disabled and immunocompromised Americans,” said Cortland.