Two doctors initially ran into trouble when the mask mandate went into effect, as both of their religious practices require men to have full beards.

Singh practices the Sikh faith and Margalit practices Judaism. Both faiths require men to have full beards, however, that initially became a problem when dentists had to wear PPE and N-95 masks during the pandemic. 

“When we were told that we were going to get fit tested for respirators. Omri and I were a little bit like ‘okay, we have beards. I wonder how the school is going to handle that,’” Singh said. 

An advocacy group called United Sikh’s worked with both doctors and the University of Washington to come up with a solution. They found one: a powered air-purifying respirator, or PAPR. Masks were unfortunately on backorder at the time. 

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