BOSTON — The COVID-19 public health emergency is officially over in Massachusetts, and many preventive measures that were implemented to keep the virus at bay will no longer be in place.
As of Friday morning, a statewide order requiring masks for all providers and visitors in healthcare settings was rescinded, and state employees are also no longer required to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Tufts Medical Center in Boston is among the hospitals dropping its mask mandate.
“Our clinical leaders have determined it is safe for Tufts Medicine to shift from a mandatory to an optional masking policy at all facilities across our health system beginning Friday,” Shira Doron, Chief Infection Control Officer for Tufts Medicine, said in a letter to the hospital community.
Boston Medical Center will no longer require masks in administrative areas and most clinical settings. Beth Israel Lahey Health will no longer require universal masking in its facilities.
For UMass Memorial Health, caregivers will need to wear a mask during patient encounters in emergency departments, oncology clinics, and transplant areas. Masks will be optional and encouraged in all other areas and patient interactions for caregivers.
Mass General Brigham is also dropping masking and said it will also shift its approach to treating the virus.
In a statement, MGH Brigham said, “Due to a combination of factors, including widespread immunity against severe disease, available vaccines and therapeutics, and less virulent variants, we are moving towards treating COVID-19 the way we do many respiratory viruses.”
This major shift comes after three years that included lockdowns, mandates, and the rollout of vaccines.
Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, there have been more than two million confirmed cases of the virus and more than 22,000 deaths in Massachusetts.
The number of cases have recently declined in a big way with Tufts Medical Center reporting zero COVID-19 inpatients for the first time since March 21, 2020.
“We are, after years of hard work, in a better place,” Massachusetts Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Robert Goldstein said Tuesday.
However, Goldstein emphasized that “this is not the end of the COVID,” rather, it’s the end of the emergency phase of the pandemic.
Access to the COVID vaccine will remain, and the cost of the vaccine will still fall to the federal government, Goldstein said.
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