More hospitals across the United States have brought back mask mandates, citing a rise in COVID-19 and influenza.
New York City last week instituted a mask mandate for the city’s 11 public hospitals and other health facilities, while similar measures were ordered at some hospitals in other locations. Some hospitals reinstated masking rules for employees months ago, in anticipation of a seasonal rush of sick people.
The New York City Health Department confirmed on Jan. 3 that the mask requirement applies to all 11 hospitals that fall under New York City’s Health and Hospitals division.
In Chicago, Rush University medical system announced on Jan. 2 that “patients, visitors and staff [are] to wear hospital-approved masks in some areas of the campus,” adding that those places “include clinical waiting areas and patient registration.”
And Cook County Health, which encompasses Chicago, as well as Endeavor Health in the Chicago area, is again requiring masks at its facilities, coming after the Illinois Department of Public Health sent a letter to hospitals suggesting they reimpose masking.
In Massachusetts, Berkshire Health Systems started mandatory masking last week, the hospital confirmed in a statement.
Los Angeles County over the past weekend reinstated masking at all licensed health care facilities, the county said. It was implemented because the county’s COVID-19 admission level reached a certain threshold in recent days.
‘Moderately Severe’
Weeks ago, multiple California counties across the Bay Area had already imposed mask mandates for staff. That order started in November 2023 and will run until the end of spring because of a predicted rise in respiratory illnesses, officials have said.“What we’re seeing right now, in the first week of January, is really an acceleration—of flu cases, in particular,” Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told reporters this week.
However, she said that influenza and COVID-19 cases may peak later in January. She also noted that the current flu strain spreads rapidly but doesn’t cause as many hospitalizations or deaths as previous variants.
“I don’t think it’s going to be overwhelming,” said Dr. William Schaffner, Vanderbilt University infectious diseases researcher, adding that the current season is “moderately severe,” without elaborating.
Meanwhile, historical CDC trends suggest that the current increase in COVID-19 cases is a far cry from the reported “surges” that occurred during the pandemic years of 2020, 2021, and 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.
In a recent update, the CDC also reported more than 14,700 flu hospitalizations in that same period last month.
Health officials are keeping an eye on JN.1, a new strain of COVID-19. The omicron subvariant was first detected in the United States in September 2023 and just before Christmas accounted for an estimated 44 percent of COVID-19 cases, according to CDC data.
While the JN.1 variant may spread more easily or be better at evading our immune systems, there’s no evidence that it causes more severe disease than other recent variants, federal officials have said.
“Considering the available, yet limited evidence, the additional public health risk posed by JN.1 is currently evaluated as low at the global level,” the agency said. “It is anticipated that this variant may cause an increase in SARS-CoV-2 cases amid a surge of infections of other viral and bacterial infections, especially in countries entering the winter season.”
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