Care facilities: Delayed mask mandate inexplicable

Re: “Pierce pulls together plan for long-term care sites,” (TNT, 4/6).

This article was heartbreaking to me as a retired healthcare worker.

The managers of long-term care facilities have up until now not insisted that staff wear masks? Deaths started at Life Care Center of Kirkland at the end of February.

The staff are the people coming and going to bring COVID-19 into such facilities.

The local Health Department is just now putting in a policy; why not immediately when there was evidence that a policy would be needed?

Care facilities apparently need such guidance to begin what seems like a common sense measure.

This is another system breakdown affecting a very vulnerable population.

This story was originally published April 15, 2020 at 12:02 PM with the headline "Care facilities: Delayed mask mandate inexplicable."