Health care facilities in New York, California, Illinois and Massachusetts have made it mandatory for patients and providers to wear masks.
New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan told WABC-TV on Wednesday that mandatory mask wearing has resumed at all 11 public hospitals, 30 health centers and five long-term care facilities in the city.
What we don't want is a labor shortage, right? When we saw the Omicron wave in 2022, the biggest problem was not only that people got sick, but also that there were a lot of frontline health workers who were out because of Covid.
Vasan told WABC.
According to the latest weekly data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, December 17-23. between More than 29,000 cases have been hospitalized due to Covid in the United States, an increase of more than 16% from the previous week. During the same period, the CDC has more than 14,700 influenza This also means hospitalization.
Rush University in Chicago said Tuesday it is requiring “patients, visitors and staff to wear hospital-approved masks in certain areas of campus.” These include clinical waiting areas and patient registration.”
Cook County Health, which includes Chicago, and Endeavor Health in suburban Chicago, reinstated masks last month after the Illinois Department of Public Health asked hospitals to step up risk-reduction efforts in several areas, including mask-wearing at the facility level.
In Massachusetts, Berkshire Health began rolling back mandatory mask wearing on Wednesday. Los Angeles County, California, reinstated a mask requirement in all health care facilities on Saturday.
Cover image source: Getty Images
