News

Meritus Health will continue to follow Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines and require face masks for staff, volunteers, patients and visitors in all health care settings. Those fully vaccinated for COVID-19 – who in study after study continue to see minimal risk for any severe complications from the virus – were given the green light this week to no longer wear masks or practice social distancing both indoors and outdoors other than health care settings.

“Health care settings are the obvious special circumstance where these public health measures should stay in place,” says Maulik Joshi, president and CEO of Meritus Health. “There are vulnerable and ill individuals in our hospital and outpatient practices, so everyone wearing masks helps protect our health care workers and all patients from droplets, germs and illness and the spread of infection.”

Fully vaccinated means:

• Two weeks after a person has received the second dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine or
• Two weeks after a person has received the single dose of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine product.

Those uncertain about their vaccine status should continue to wear a mask and seek the expert opinion of their primary care provider. COVID-19 vaccines are available and being administered to anyone age 12 and older by walking in during open hours at the Meritus vaccine clinic in Robinwood Professional Center’s atrium. Updated hours and appointment information, as well as other COVID-19 resources are available at MeritusHealth.com under the green COVID-19 bar on the home page.

“The best way for our community to get this virus under control is to increase the number of people who are vaccinated,” says Joshi. “It’s going to take all of us taking our shot(s) to see the end of COVID-19.”