Mask off – in clinics and hospitals, it should remain

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With the end of June, all Corona special provisions will fall – including the mask obligation in vulnerable settings. Whether this is good?

The government has presented the roadmap for the end of the Corona measures. In the Austrian Parliament on Wednesday, the path back to “normality” was set: April 30 marks the end of mandatory FFP2 masks in hospitals, nursing homes and other vulnerable areas. Many of the patients belong to the risk group. It is unclear whether there will be a separate regulation to protect them.

One thing is certain: The Covid 19 Measures Act will end before the summer. It is to be replaced by a revised version of the Epidemic Law, the core of which has remained unchanged since 1913. A new draft should be in place by the end of the year.

A legal basis is needed to write a mask requirement into the hospital regulations of municipal hospitals; the health association tells Radio Wien. Ordensspitäler wants to set for vulnerable groups if necessary measures: “We follow therefore the recommendations of the city of Vienna in good agreement. For vulnerable groups the Viennese order hospitals will set – as also in former times – if necessary special measures. This was already the case before the pandemic and will remain so in the future,” it said in a statement to ORF Vienna.

From a medical perspective, the protection of high-risk groups continues to be recommended. For example, virologist Monika Redlberger-Fritz of the National Vaccination Committee: “There it will probably already make sense especially for people who work in such areas to continue to recommend wearing masks.” Visitors should also wear masks in areas where high-risk patients are treated, such as wards with immunosuppressed patients (patients whose immune system functions only to a limited extent; note) and neonatal wards, the virologist recommends.

The mask requirement also applies to doctors’ offices. But a mode will also be considered for this setting, confirms Erik Randall-Huber, vice president of the Vienna Medical Association. “We will probably design something that people with respiratory infections are asked to wear masks in the office, for example, a notice for the offices.”