With the end of the Public Health Emergency in Massachusetts, the state requirement for healthcare institutions to maintain masks will end. Free access to COVID PCR tests, rapid tests, vaccines and treatment will also end - unless we take action to pressure Governor Healey and Massachusetts Elected Officials to take action to protect our health.

Hospitals in the Boston area have been privately lobbying Massachusetts DPH to end infection control measures in healthcare. Removing masks in healthcare doesn’t make sense. People with COVID go to healthcare for treatment, and they are likely to encounter a vulnerable person they could infect. When you are in a healthcare setting, usually you have a problem, and catching COVID could make it worse.

Ending masks and pre-procedure/admission COVID testing in hospitals will lead to COVID outbreaks, as happened in California just 3 weeks after the end of mask requirements were lifted. Ending infection control in healthcare especially puts disabled people and our elders at risk and will make healthcare staffing shortages even worse.

Ending infection control in healthcare especially puts disabled people and our elders at risk and will make healthcare staffing shortages even worse. Removing masks in healthcare would also increase everyone’s risk for Long COVID - a varying array of chronic conditions which can impact anyone after even “mild” infections. Vaccines reduce but don’t eliminate the risks of Long COVID, which disables nearly 200,000 Massachusetts residents. Massachusetts can and should do better, and keep masks in healthcare as LA County and Washington state health facilities have done.

Join us in writing to the Members of the Joint Committee on Public Health and to our State Senators and Representatives and asking them to take immediate action on masks in healthcare and access to tools to prevent and treat COVID-19.

In April 2020, legislators spoke out to support equity in development of the crisis standards of care. Today, we ask them to do the same  

1. Call on Governor Healey and DPH to protect our health and keep infection control measures including masks in healthcare

2. Ensure everyone has the tools to prevent and treat COVID, including free and accessible, N95 or equivalent respirators, COVID vaccines, PCR and rapid tests and treatments, regardless of insurance