Alaska Veterans Administration mandates surgical masks, as cloth ones are not enough

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The Alaska Veterans Administration now requires clients and visitors at all of its Alaska facilities to wear surgical masks, not cloth masks, to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

“Surgical masks are required at all Alaska VA Healthcare facilities for employees, patients, and visitors. This means surgical masks must be worn instead of cloth masks. We will give you a surgical mask If you arrive at one of our facilities without one,” the VA wrote.

“Remember: wear your mask properly over your mouth and nose, continue to physically distance, and wash your hands before and after taking off your mask!” the VA said in an email to veterans.

Mike Coons, who is a veteran in Alaska, said he received the message on Friday, and wondered if this will policy will soon be applied to other facilities — in airports and commercial jets, on military bases, or federal buildings.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration defines a surgical mask is as a “loose-fitting, disposable device that creates a barrier between the mouth and nose of the wearer and potential contaminants in the immediate environment.”

42 COMMENTS

  1. First sentence is false, mask do not stop the spread of c19. Smoke particles are 30 times the size of the covid aerosols floating around. If you could smell smoke through your mask, 30 covid aerosols particles could come through, with linked arms. Your bodies entire functions, require oxygen. The air we breath is required for best health. Remember your underwear and pants will not stop the fumes of a fart. Even church farts are detected!

  2. What a bunch of hog wash. No masks stop viruses as they are smaller than the masks can filter. Just wear one out in the cold and look at the vapor cloud. Worse yet, the masks make it difficult to talk, so everyone yells which actually spreads more vapors further. Let’s start asking real questions, like have you actually isolated any COVID virus? Have they actually isolated any COVID variants? PCR test doesn’t detect COVID it only detects pieces and parts and high frequency cycling produces significant false positives. Let’s start quarantines on sick peoples with actual symptoms. What happened to flu season? Did we do all of this crazy stuff during flu seasons? NO! When they say we can’t go back to normal, then you know there is a problem.

  3. Covid will end only when we stop playing these games.

    At least they are using a mask that lets you breathe easier.

  4. Then you can save your surgical mask for future wear recycling it like you do rewearing the cloth one. Like How DO you know the people around you ARE washing their cloth masks? Or not just reusing the blue surgical mask? After multiple uses stretching back months. Hahahaha
    I know I am not the only one recycling masks. I wait to change my blue mask when it begins to get fuzzy and fray in the middle spreading whatever germs is on the mask.
    I see social distance and regularly sanitizing surfaces is better than masks at preventing the spread of any disease.
    The general public wearing masks? Well! Most people I seen passing by hang their masks on the car’s rearview mirror exhaling all over them. So places of businesses can’t control how sanitized is a personal mask nor what is coming on a mask.

          • When was the last time you read a detailed study on the effectiveness of masks or lockdowns?

            Hysterics and theatrics, and an abandonment of reason and common sense has done more damage than anything during this time. Not all ill intended; some very good people have succumbed to it. They paved the road to where we are with their good intentions… but the people driving the bus, are cynical, manipulative, and evil, and they need to be fought with the light of truth, no matter what time of year.

          • It’s the UV from said sun that sanitizes, there’s very little UV emitted from the sun when its below 30 degrees. There’s basically ZERO UV getting through that automobile glass. Your average pot-head knows these facts and would never give-up his UV grow lights and bathroom closet.

          • It was a joke, people!
            Wow!
            (FYI, It has been about the same temperature in Big Lake as in Squarebanks and at -30 and -40 it is very likely to be clear skies.)

  5. How much did the manufacturers of surgical masks have to bride the appropriate officials to institute this policy that will only pad their profits enormously, I wonder.

  6. No doubt these new surgical masks will be rapidly produced by slaves working in China for our overlords, the CCP.

    • I’m sure these men and women who served and sacrificed for our country, other countries, really appreciate this action. I mean if anybody needs to do more to protect others it’s them (eye roll from hell). Cripes the indignity is repulsive. The government will set no bar too low for its treatment of our military.

      • Now I know that these NIOSH certified dust masks in use in general population are useless against viruses, don’t work if you have a beard, once they get wet from breathing they cut down a bit on oxygen, increase CO2 back and atcha, increase bacterial load around your mouth, nose, and in your respiratory system, and are supposedly good for 8 hours (although I’m not stupid enough to wear one for dusty conditions for 8 hours without changing it out, much less for a supposed viral protection.). Where did you get the 15 minute info?

  7. Stupidity. I think our federal government has too much time and money on their hands. They seem to have not much better to do than to sit around and create more regulations, rules, means of exerting control, along with ways to justify the spending of more tax dollars.

  8. They have to fitted, pet OSHA standards. No beards.
    Oh, that’s right no following standards, just look good.

  9. Juneau’s Bartlett Hospital Emergency Room had a similar policy (likely still has) where they furnished you a surgical mask in place of whatever mask you had on but it was not expressed as “cloth ones are not enough.” No doubt some cloth masks are satisfactory, but some are not, and difficult to make that determination.
    Did the VA specifically say “cloth ones are not enough?” Unlikely.

  10. The surgical masks don’t work for this purpose either. It says so right on the flipping box for crying out loud. How in the name of all that’s holy did so many people in America become so incredibly STUPID??

  11. So one wonders if this has nothing to do with cloth vs paper masks.
    It would be interesting to know how many veterans came in wearing “Trump” or “Let’s go Brandon” cloth masks. That would be embarrassing to those in charge. Ergo, make everyone wear a generic paper mask, that while ill-fitting, does not make fun of the Grandpa in Chief.

  12. If a vaper were to put a mask on and vape through the mask in front of these idiots so they could see the “smoke” come through the mask, would they change their minds? Probably not, but it would make a point to those whom they are trying to control!!

    • Don’t laugh Sally, but I was driving on the Glenn a few weeks ago. While passing a vehicle, I noticed the driver was wearing a masks with a small hole, through which a cigarette stuck out. Smoke was emanating from the mask. Not only did it look quite surreal, but I can only imagine that it is also a very serious fire hazard. I was sure to steer clear of that vehicle.

  13. I’m a nearly 25 year customer of the Anchorage VA clinic & have been mostly happy with the service I’ve received over the years. But I have to say that the way the VA communicates information to their patients leaves something to be desired. I read in this story that the VA user got a message informing him of needing to wear a mask when using the clinic. I, however, did not get a message specifically addressing the need to wear a mask, so if I hadn’t come across this story, I wouldn’t have known wearing a mask is required. It would have become a pain in the derrière if I had to turn around & go back home just to get a mask. To be totally honest, I’ve experienced this inconvenience & others over time because the VA clinic, as far as I know, does not have a policy/process to use the internet to send an e-mail message to patients generally & specifically. There is a communication program on the VA’s website & I’ve used it with success to talk to my doctor, make appointments & order Rx refills & renewals. But when it comes to notifying en mass veterans about a change in policy like wearing a mask, there is no e-mail ‘blast’ function to quickly & thoroughly notify VA patients.

  14. How many mask wearers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
    .
    Where are the hazmat teams to clean up the carelessly discarded masks?
    .
    Is there a special incinerator for discarded masks?
    .
    safety first

  15. Experience = Over 50 years in the VA system (Service Connected). Anyone who still has any faith at all in the medical community as a whole, or the Alaska VA, is requested to remove your head from your duffel bag. You’re better off avoiding both!

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