A former Trump administration official who led the initial federal pandemic response in 2020 said that masks do not need to be mandated now.
Dr. Deborah Birx, former White House COVID-19 response coordinator, told Newsmax Saturday that three years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, “we don’t need to mandate.” She was responding to an increasing number of hospitals and businesses that are mandating masks amid a slight increase in COVID-19 hospital admissions around the United States.
“We need to actually empower people with the information that they need for themselves and their families because every family is different,” she added. “And by the way, outside is safe, and playgrounds are safe.”
Earlier this month, United Health Services in Binghamton, New York, confirmed that it would again require masks for patients, visitors, staff, and doctors. “Because of an uptick in COVID-19 cases, masks are once again required in all clinical areas at UHS Wilson Medical Center, UHS Binghamton General Hospital, UHS Chenango Memorial Hospital and UHS Delaware Valley Hospital, as well as primary and specialty care sites,” United Health Services stated on its website.
The policy, imposed last week, is “in effect immediately for all patients, visitors, employees, medical staff, volunteers, students and vendors.” It added: “Masks are required at nurses’ stations and in conference rooms within clinical departments, including areas where patients register, wait, transport through, or receive testing and care.”
Elsewhere in New York, Auburn Community Hospital in Auburn, located upstate, said on Aug. 19, about a month after its previous mask mandate ended, that it would again be requiring masks on-site. That applies to anyone going inside the facility, regardless of vaccination status.
Also in mid-August, University Hospital in Syracuse, New York, reinstated masking for everyone entering the building. The hospital’s mandate was only lifted a few months prior to that, in late April.
Kaiser Permanente in Santa Rosa, California, also reimposed a mandate for staff, doctors, and nurses, but not patients or visitors.
Mask mandates were also implemented at Hollywood studio Lionsgate in Santa Monica, California, in recent days. However, the company told TheWrap that the Los Angeles Department of Health essentially forced it to reinstate the mask rule and later clarified that masks are now not mandatory at its office in Santa Monica.
In a similar move, Morris Brown College in Atlanta confirmed this weekend that it rescinded its mask mandate after reimposing it after COVID-19 cases were confirmed at a larger Atlanta campus where it resides.
The mask mandate was slated to end on Sunday, a Morris Brown spokesperson told Newsweek. The school will “still have several safety protocols in place,” the spokesperson added.
Last month, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, showed that COVID-19 hospitalizations have risen across the country. But despite the increase, it’s among the lowest levels of hospital admissions since the pandemic started years ago.“An upswing is not a surge; it’s not even a wave,” Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer for Tufts Medicine, noted in a ABC News interview. “What we’re seeing is a very gradual and small upward trajectory of cases and hospitalizations, without deaths really going along, which is great news.”
Amid the reports of masking coming back, some officials and conservative celebrities have implored Americans to push back against the rules. That includes former President Donald Trump, who released a video last week saying that people “should not comply” with the mandates.
The CDC, as well as the Transportation Security Administration, has told The Epoch Times and other media on recent occasions that there is no talk of mandates coming back.
