Los Angeles County Reinstates Mask Mandates for Hospitals

A health care professional in a hospital prepares to enter a patient's room. File, Megan Jelinger/AFP via Getty Images

Los Angeles County over the weekend confirmed that has reinstated a mask-wearing mandate for staff, patients, and visitors at licensed health care facilities, citing a recent increase in COVID-19 cases.

According to health officials, the county entered the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) “medium level” for hospital admissions on Dec. 29, triggering the masking mandate.

“Over the past week in Los Angeles County, there have been notable, yet not unexpected, increases in COVID-19 reported cases, hospitalizations, and deaths,” the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said in a statement about the change.

“While recent increases are significant, they remain considerably below last winter’s peak and common-sense protections are strongly recommended to help curb transmission and severe illness as the new year begins.”

The mandate stipulates that the requirement will be rescinded once Los Angeles County, which has the highest population of any county in the United States, re-enters the CDC’s threshold for “low level” COVID-19 transmission and hospitalizations.

The threshold for the CDC’s “medium”  level is 10 to 19.9 new COVID-19-related hospital admissions per 100,000 people over one week. The order said that over the past week or so, 10.5 new COVID-19-connected hospitalizations were recorded across Los Angeles County.

“In addition, all persons visiting a licensed health care facility that provides inpatient care are required to mask when around patients and while in patient-care areas. This will remain in effect until the COVID-19 hospital admission level in Los Angeles County is below the CDC’s Medium Level for at least 14 consecutive days,” the order added.

Far More Previously

Historical data posted by the CDC show that the recent uptick in COVID-19 cases is still a far cry from the number of cases in 2020, 2021, and early 2022.

The data show that for the week ending Dec. 23, 2023, there were about 29,000 hospitalizations across the United States, while for the week ending a year before that, on Dec. 24, there were some 39,000 hospitalizations.

About three months ago, Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer told the Los Angeles Times that she wasn’t looking to reinstate a mask mandate.

The official said she was “really not focused on masks coming back as a mandate,” adding, “If we ever felt like we needed to return to everybody needing to put their mask back on again, I think we would be in bad shape and most people would want to put their mask on.

“We have such good tools right now that we really shouldn’t get there.”

Los Angeles’ mandate came after New York City’s public hospital system, NYC Health + Hospitals, did that same at its facilities late last month.

“Due to an uptick in respiratory illnesses like COVID-19, flu & RSV in our communities & our hospital, we must return to mandatory masking. Please wear a mask when you visit us!” the New York City public hospital operator wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, in late December in a now-deleted post.

The hospital system also posted a photo of staff wearing masks on the platform, drawing negative feedback in the comments section.

Aside from New York and Los Angeles, UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Massachusetts, confirmed to local media that it would issue a monthlong mask requirement for its staff effective on Jan. 2. Patients and visitors won’t be mandated to wear face coverings, however.

People board a bus wearing face masks amid the coronavirus pandemic in south Los Angeles, on April 6, 2020. Mario Tama/Getty Images

“These changes are expected to remain in effect for approximately one month, at which time they will be reevaluated based on current trends,” a spokesperson for the hospital said in the statement. “The health and well-being of our patients, visitors, and employees is our top priority.”

The Mass General Brigham health system in Massachusetts also announced that it is reinstating masking requirements because of COVID-19.

“Our masking policies are based on the current respiratory illness rates in our communities,” Mass General Brigham confirmed in a statement to local media on Dec. 28.

In Delaware, TidalHealth announced on Dec. 28 that it’s mandating masks for all hospital visitors in patients’ rooms. That rule was initiated in “an effort to protect the most vulnerable of our population from close contact with persons that may be contagious but not yet have symptoms,” according to the hospital.

Multiple California counties across the Bay Area region had already imposed a mask mandate for staff. That order started in November and will run until the end of spring because of a predicted rise in respiratory illnesses, officials have said.

In December, the CDC provided an update on the JN.1 COVID-19 variant by saying that it accounts for between 39 percent and 50 percent of all cases. But the agency said that it’s not clear if the variant causes more severe symptoms.

The World Health Organization said in an earlier update that the strain doesn’t appear to pose a higher risk than previous variants.

“As we observe the rise of the JN.1 variant, it’s important to note that while it may be spreading more widely, there is currently no significant evidence suggesting it is more severe or that it poses a substantial public health risk,” John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital, told ABC News last month.