Amor De Cosmos

I still wear a KN95 every time I enter a healthcare facility. Not because I think masks are magical. Because hospitals, clinics, and nursing facilities are where coughing, febrile, immunocompromised, elderly, and recently infected people tend to congregate. And the data have not suddenly reversed. Well-fitting masks and respirators reduce exposure to respiratory particles. CDC still recommends their use as part of infection control, particularly during periods of high respiratory-virus activity and around high-risk patients. A respirator is not perfect protection. Neither is a seat belt. That has never been the standard. If I can reduce my chance of bringing influenza, COVID, RSV, or some other respiratory infection home — or carrying one from one vulnerable patient to another — by putting on a KN95, that is a remarkably small inconvenience. What did we learn from the pandemic? Among other things, respiratory viruses travel through the air, hospitals contain a lot of them, and filtration works. Apparently some people learned instead that fabric over the nose became a political identity.