Reinstate COVID Precautions, The Pandemic is Not Over!: An Open Letter to All Atlanta Healthcare Facilities and Providers

We write to you as a coalition of Atlanta residents, patients, healthcare providers and activists who are concerned and frustrated by the inadequate public health response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in our city. At the time of writing, there have been over 7 million reported deaths from COVID-19 globally and over 774 million reported cases. We are currently in the second-largest COVID surge in the United States since the start of the pandemic with over 2000 people dying every week throughout January. Countless others have been subjected to disablement due to long COVID, a condition that patients themselves had to fight to be properly recognized. This mass death and disablement is the result of organized abandonment on behalf of our government and healthcare systems, which prematurely rolled back and defunded almost all COVID protections during an ongoing pandemic. Predictably, we are once again in one of the highest spikes in the course of the pandemic and preventable infections, death and disablement are being accepted as “normal,” even when it is directly caused by healthcare systems.On March 1st, the CDC dropped all isolation guidelines for individuals who have been fever-free for 24 hours, blatantly ignoring scientific evidence demonstrating that most people infected with COVID are infectious for around 10 days. This follows the CDC's reduction in isolation guidelines from 10 days to 5 days in December 2021, a move specially requested by Delta's CEO. Most COVID cases are caused by asymptomatic spread (only ~30% of people who test positive have a fever). In the absence of mask mandates and regular testing, we have seen patients contract COVID while hospitalized, where being infected with COVID as a hospitalized patient carries a 5-15% chance of death depending on the dominant variant. We’ve seen people delay or forgo medical treatment out of fear that they will contract COVID while receiving care. We have seen people have to take on the burden of advocating for themselves or loved ones for basic COVID precautions so any care can be received without the extra risks associated with COVID infection. This is all harm, and it is harm that has been normalized and accepted by medical facilities across the country, including yours.No hospital or medical system can sincerely claim to care about the health and safety of patients and medical staff, or claim to be practicing evidence-based medicine, while abandoning COVID precautions in the midst of a pandemic. We reject the normalization of mass death and disablement produced by health and governing systems that willfully ignore and even accept preventable COVID infections for the sake of going “back to normal.” We reject any policy that puts profit over human lives. We reject any eugenic policy that sacrifices the health of elderly, disabled, immunocompromised, and structurally marginalized patients for "normalcy" in an exploitative, capitalist economy.We call upon all Atlanta hospitals and medical facilities to, at minimum, institute the following practices, many of which are based on practices adopted by healthcare facilities throughout the U.S. earlier in the pandemic and suggested by the People's CDC:- Instate universal mask mandates in public and “patient-facing” areas
- Provide high quality masks (e.g. N95, KN95, etc.) for all workers and hospital visitors
- Provide free and available COVID tests for all workers
- Invest in proper ventilation and air filtration systems for all hospitals and clinics
- Mandatory COVID testing for all hospitalized patients
- Regular testing of all hospital/clinic workers, including all those with URI symptoms
- Mandatory paid isolation for workers with COVID infection for a minimum of 10 days, with work resumption only after negative COVID tests
- Weekly reporting on the COVID census for hospitalized patients
- Mandatory education for all healthcare workers and readily available educational materials for all community members on aerosol transmission
- Hospital infection guidelines for COVID-19 based on the proper treatment of aerosolized pathogens (e.g. leaving a room recently vacated by a COVID positive patient unoccupied for a sufficient time period before cleaning and reuse)Every patient that fears contracting COVID while seeking medical care is a failure of the healthcare system. Every patient that contracts COVID while seeking or receiving medical care is a failure of the healthcare system. Every employee that contracts COVID while working is a failure of the healthcare system. Every infection, every death, every subsequently impaired immune system, and every case of long COVID matters. Every person matters. This is all harm that governments and medical systems are responsible for causing and are also responsible for preventing.Choose to care for and protect your patients and workers. Uphold your supposed commitment to doing no harm.Signed,Mask Bloc Atlanta

Signees

Rand Mitchell
Dusty Baker
Bri Ferreira, LCSW
Tori B
Shani Clark
Zak
MC
Lindsey Funke
AJ Garvey
Ashley Barone
Simone Coleman
Christa Davoll
Nora Brown
Eliza Crofts
Arshia Nikounejad
Kay Lukkason
Kaydx
Destini
Corbin McKinney
Katherine Kennedy
Jessica
Hollie Mhlanga
Grayson Greening
Jaziaha
Alejandra Lewis
Chianne Cato
Joel Lerner, Public health student
Raina washington
Tatiana Hurtado