April 6, 2022 – The future will include face masks. Not for everyone, but they will still be around.
Even as the COVID-19 threat seems to be easing, more than half of doctors and nurses expect to continue wearing face masks while shopping in grocery and retail stores and at indoor events such as weddings and concerts, according to the results of a recent Medscape survey of health care professionals.
But the general public is less likely to see mask use continuing for the foreseeable future, as shown by a poll done March 18-24 by WebMD.
Only 41% of people who responded to that poll said they would keep wearing masks in stores, and an equal number thought they would keep using them at indoor public events and places such as churches and museums. Among doctors, 56% said they would keep wearing masks in those situations, with nurses at 56% agreement for shopping and 55% for indoor events and places.
None of the other situations included in either survey produced more agreement on wearing masks, although 53% of doctors said they would continue to wear masks at work. Mask-wearing at work will continue for 47% of nurses but for just 34% of the public.
The Medscape survey, done March 15-22, involved 702 doctors and 1,080 nurses. The WebMD poll received responses from 515 people in the general public.
More than a quarter (29%) of consumers said that they will not wear a mask in public, compared with 16% of nurses and 18% of doctors. But slightly more consumers (14%) than nurses (12%) and doctors (11%) will continue wearing a mask outside near others.
Disagreement Under the Surface
The surveys’ question about the CDC’s latest recommendations, which say people can go unmasked in counties with low or medium community levels of COVID-19, showed lots of division among both groups polled, although the members of the general public took it to a higher level.
At first glance, the consumers’ split of 54% agreement and 34% disagreement with the new guidance (12% were neutral) is less polarized than the nurses’ 50% and 43% and the doctors’ 51% and 42%, but the levels of agreement tell a different story.
The 54% agreement among consumers breaks down to 42% strongly agreeing and 12% somewhat agreeing, but the nurses and doctors were both more likely to somewhat agree (22% and 21%, respectively). The same pattern holds on the other side: 23% of consumers strongly disagreed and 11% somewhat disagreed, versus 18% and 25% of nurses and 16% and 26% of doctors.
The timing of the new CDC masking guidance found even less favor among the survey respondents, as only 18% of consumers, 24% of nurses, and 24% of doctors said the recommendations were released at the right time. But the consumers were evenly split between too early (35%) and too late (34%), while the professionals definitely leaned toward the premature side: nurses (48% too early, 18% too late), and doctors (47% and 23%).
Comparisons With 2021
In an earlier Medscape survey, done shortly after the CDC relaxed masking recommendations during a major decline in COVID activity during the spring of 2021, even more health care professionals thought they were premature.
When confronted with the CDC’s announcement that fully vaccinated people could go unmasked in many places and situations, 57% of doctors (660 of them) and 63% of nurses (1,350) said the guidance came too early.
They also took a more negative stance on the substance of the recommendations in that survey, done May 17-20, 2021. Overall disagreement then was 50% among doctors and 53% for nurses, compared with 42% and 43%, respectively, for the current CDC guidance.
Perhaps the biggest change over the past year, though, was in situational mask use. In 2021, only 17% of doctors and 16% of nurses thought they would have to keep wearing masks at indoor events. Those numbers, as we’ve already seen, are now up to 56% for doctors and 55% for nurses.
