Why We’re Still Requiring Masks

We’re keeping all our Covid safety protocols in place for the time-being, as many other places have relaxed their requirements after Dane County’s latest order expired. Here’s our top reasons why:

1. Massage therapy is considered health care in Wisconsin. We must comply with HIPAA, and we have higher standards when it comes to health and safety. We follow the guidelines for healthcare workers, not for general businesses.
2. The pandemic is not over. It does feel like we’re turning a substantial corner, which is great! Dane County’s cases are finally below 100 per 100,000 for the first time since last summer, but we want those cases to be even lower than they currently are as of this writing. Hospitalizations and deaths are also declining, but people are still dying every day from this pandemic, and we are not yet to endemicity.
3. Lots of people have immunocompromised conditions (or live with those who do). It’s not uncommon for people who seek massage therapy on a regular basis to have other underlying conditions that massage helps manage or alleviate. We would rather err on the side of protecting everyone’s health and safety than have an environment that makes anyone with an underlying health condition uncomfortable. 
4. The CDC is in the process of revising its guidelines again. Per the Associated Press, the US just extended its federal mask mandate for travel through mid-April, and in the meantime, the CDC will develop new, more targeted policies that will consider the number of cases nationally and in local communities, as well as the risk of new variants Speaking of…
5. We don’t yet know what the next variant will become. It’s already out there, and experts are unsure whether we’ve reached a level of vaccination and immunity that will preclude another spike like we had with Omicron, or whether it will be different enough to start a whole new wave. We want to protect both our staff and our clients until we know which way things will go, since we cannot do massage from a safe distance. 

These are the most significant reasons, and most of the clients we’ve spoken with about this topic are grateful we are keeping our precautions in place. We do hope we’re finally on our way up and out of this long challenge, but we’re going to wait until more is known. We don’t want to be among the first to relax the protective measures; we will be among the last to do so. And we sincerely hope that cases continue their swift decline, and that we are finally coming out of this pandemic at long last.