The CDC, today, issued guidelines for reopening offices that ignore medical guidance regarding masks.
The latest medical guidance, according to May 21 article in the New England Journal of Medicine reported here, says:
Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes).
Further, the NEJM notes that masks do not offer protection without significant additional precautions that include wearing goggles, gloves, gowns that are changed after close, prolonged contact with anyone.
(Read the full story as reported on Hennessy’s View here.)
The new CDC guidelines, however, say companies should require all employees to wear masks whenever they’re in the building. There are two problems with this unsubstantiated guideline:
- Masks, according to doctors and scientists, say masks cannot slow the spread of Coronavirus.
- Any marginal protection offered by a mask is obliterated by lack of eye-protection, gloves, and gowns.
The CDC guidelines seem designed to provide a perception of safety, which the NEJM article notes could increase the spread of the disease:
Focusing on universal masking alone may, paradoxically, lead to more transmission of Covid-19 if it diverts attention from implementing more fundamental infection-control measures.
Employers have three options in the absence of reasonable CDC guidelines. Companies can:
- Keep the office closed
- Open the office and require goggles, gloves, gowns, and masks
- Open the office and let people do whatever makes them happy and productive
No matter which way you go, the chances of your employees contracting Coronavirus this year are the same: 70%.
There are no experts. The CDC is as clueless as I am. Hide in your basement or live like a free human. Your choice. I won’t tell you what to do, and I will ignore the nannies who want to tell me what to do.
It’s called America.