In an effort to keep our office as safe and inclusive as we possibly can, we will be continuing to require masking at all times while in the office regardless of vaccination status. While the CDC and the World Health Organization have declared an end to the global health "emergency," they have both attempted to clarify that the pandemic is ongoing and COVID-19 is still a serious health concern. 

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Think of it like the medical response you'd see with a heart attack. In the emergency phase, you rush to the hospital for testing, maybe pharmaceutical or surgical treatment. And then one the emergency phase passes, it's on to the maintenance phase with healthy dietary changes and exercise. The CDC and WHO have said we're past that initial emergency phase, but we still need to work through the maintenance phase to be able to stay healthy. That's things like stayhing updated on vaccine recommendations and getting boosters when they're approved and recommended for you, avoiding exposure to folks who don't feel well and staying home when you don't feel well, testing when you have symptoms that could be COVID (PCR tests are still the gold standard, as the rapid at-home tests or RATs haven't kept up well with mutations). It also means masking when out in public, especially in spaces where you're more likely to be exposed to sick people, like healthcare settings. 

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According to the WHO, 1 in 10 infections (not people, infections) with the SARS-CoV-2 virus is currently estimated to result in some form of serious long-term complications. There are several things I want to point out about this: 

• Getting infected multiple times in a short period of time is not only possible, but also appears to be becoming more common as precautions continue to be abandoned. 

• Post-viral sequelae (like long-COVID, chronic Lyme disease, post-polio syndrome and the like) can be and are often quite debilitating. 

• Post-viral sequelae specific to the SARS-CoV-2 virus are still not well understood. However, it's becoming more clear that this virus affects not only the respiratory system (its primary mode of transmission), but also the vascular (heart, arteries, and veins) and central nervous systems (brain and spinal cord). Its symptoms are widely varying and currently very likely being underdiagnosed. 

• The severity of any potential long-term health effects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is not proportional to the severity of initial infection. That means that just because your symptoms while you had an active COVID infection were mild and cleared easily enough doesn't mean you can't get long-COVID or that any experience you have with long-COVID will also be relatively mild. 

• We've only known COVID for four years now. Unlike other viral and bacterial infections that we've known about for decades or even centuries, we have no idea what the future holds for post-viral sequelae possibilities related to SARS-CoV-2 infection. It could be possible that what we're currently calling long-COVID works itself out in a few years and people are fine. It could also be possible that every single person who was infected ends up with serious health problems. We just don't know because this particular family of viruses is just too new and we don't have any long-term data on it to know specifically what we can expect. It's likely somewhere in the middle of those two scenarios, but that's still a large potential of unpleasant experiences for a lot of people. 

• We also don't know how to predict who will wind up with long-COVID and who won't. We've seen stories of super healthy twenty- or thirty-somethings having an incredibly mild case of COVID, then several months later having a series of strokes or heart attacks as a result of the microclots or vascular damage from the virus. 

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COVID is not over. The "emergency" first phase of dealing with the onset of the global pandemic may be, but while we do have a better handle on how to treat acute infection and prevent as many people from dying as did early on in the pandemic, the truth is that there are still too many people dying, getting terribly sick, or becoming permanently disabled for us to feel comfortable lifting our mask requirement. We will always be willing to supply you with a mask if you forget to bring one. But we do hope that you choose to mask any time you're in public, not just in our office, so that you also have a better chance of avoiding all of the scary stuff above. 

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Any single one of us can become disabled, medically vulnerable, or high risk at any moment. Just because you are healthy right now doesn't mean that COVID will be kind to you, or that something else might happen that would make COVID a much larger issue for you. 

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This office is inclusive. 

Of gender, sexual orientation, skin color, religion, weight, fitness level, age, ability, you name it. What this office is not inclusive of is racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, fatphobia, ageism, and ableism.

If you are a human who needs care, you are welcome here, and we will make sure that we do everything in our power to make sure you can feel safe. 

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In keeping with that, everyone will be expected to mask to help protect all of our patients from possible exposure to COVID or any other airborne pathogen that's circulating (looking at you, RSV, norovirus, and flu!). Because whether you're currently high-risk or not, we don't want you getting COVID or anything else while you're here, and we don't want to get COVID or anything else while we're here. You don't have to be vulnerable to deserve protection. 

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If that's not okay with you, we promise you it won't hurt our feelings for you to walk away from our office and never look back, whether that's deciding not to schedule with us or showing up for your appointment and having us hold out a mask for you to put on and then turning around and walking out.