Can anyone explain why medical treatment facilities to include the VA are still requiring face masks?

COVID-19 is still killing people; it is still around and so are it's mutations. I appreciate the mask policy, it's an easy pre-caution. We have already broken the ice and developed a normalcy to it, no big deal to me.

Many folks in the hospital are very vulnerable. A mask at least provides some protection for them. I am happy to make that small move if it protects them even the slightest

Healthcare facilities should be expected to put in place adequate protective measures to prevent the spread of the virus, especially when people with the virus tend to go there to be treated. If you don't appreciate that, nobody is forcing you to go to a treatment facility.

SFC Jim Freshour I don't agree with it but since the VA is my primary care and if I want them to take care of me, I follow the orders to mask up while inside. When I was getting my MRI a couple weeks ago, they let me take it off while I was under the machine. I'm just very thankful that my school discontinued the requirement of wearing them. Every try to teach all day under a mask? I was short of breath and had to go to the hallway occasionally to rejuvenate myself. Some days I took my students outside for a breath of fresh air so we could unmask for a few minutes.

I went to a women's center at the hospital (civilian) for an exam last week. They still require a mask and I have no problems with that. When I got my eyes examined recently they required a mask too.

Hospitals have sick people. Some people have undiagnosed Covid. Others may be highly vulnerable to COVID due to diabetes, heart or lung disease. You can protect the two groups from each by making everyone where masks, and protect the staff as well.

It seems to me that the likelihood of encountering someone who is infected with COVID is higher at a medical facility than the corner grocery store.

Typical government/military mentality. Once a policy is put into place, there's always a fear of blame for the person/s who orders it removed. What they should do is install automatic expiration/renewal dates at the inception. So that it expires automatically unless reevaluated and extended. That way things don't go on for years waiting for somebody to decides if its time for it to be cancelled.

Medical facilities have an increased concentration of two groups, (first) the sick, who may have undiagnosed COVID, and (second) the infirm... diabetics, immunosuppressed, heart and lung patients, who might get very sick, even from omicron variant. In a VA facility these two groups may be in close contact... A vital phrase guiding the health care profession is "first do no harm". In other words, coming in for medical treatment should not have an unnecessary risk to make one sick. It also protects the workers who see so many patients.

In my area of Virginia, the Covid virus mutation has the hospitals filling up again. I'm expecting to wear a mask for the rest of my life so I can live.