I think this is your problem, not your co-worker's.

mrsconn23

Dear Prudence,

I work in a large, diverse organization. I have age-related hearing loss and wear hearing aids but nobody knows (I think) because of my own anxiety about ageism. I have to attend lots of meetings. One staff person is still wearing a mask because of their own health conditions. This is absolutely fine except for one thing: They are not a native English-speaker and have a very heavy accent. Their English is excellent but their accent makes it hard for me to understand them, even with my hearing aids, and due to the mask, I lose my ability to lip-read and get those other cues that are so important to comprehension. This is an extremely common aspect of hearing loss, the loss of the ability to understand accents. But it’s also a sensitive issue, I think.

I would like to ask them to lower their mask while they are speaking. I sit close to them, but still, it’s very difficult to hear everything they are saying and I know I’m missing some of it. There are competing priorities, both of which are valuable, her mask/health and my hearing, and I don’t know the most tactful way to approach this. Obviously, I would tell them why I am asking this if I go that route, and understand that what I believe to be my secret might cease to be that, but it’s a risk I am willing to take so that I don’t lose too much of the content. How do you recommend I proceed?

—Could You Repeat That?

STARMOON44

“I’m hard of hearing and it’s difficult for me to understand you in mask. Would we be able to shift these meetings to zoom?” Or carry on as you are doing but mention that you’re hard of hearing and will send an e-mail post meeting with a recap just to make sure you’ve got everything. 

or talk to HR. It’s not appropriate for you to be asking another employee to compromise their health to accommodate your disability. That’s a discussion to have more formally. 

short+sassy

Geez, LW!  Are they listening to themselves?  On what planet do they think it's appropriate to ask someone else to compromise their health, over just admitting they've started to experience hearing lost.  It's fine to keep your medical condition private...until it starts to affect your work.  It's past that point now.  Time to request reasonable accommodations.

I guess if they can get by with just letting the coworker know, that might work for now.  But there can be no mention of the person removing their mask or their accent.  Something like, "Hey Coworker, I hate having to admit this.  But my hearing isn't what it used to be and I'm having a harder and harder time with it, especially when people wear masks.  Can we move most of our communication to e-mail or Zoom?"