More health systems in the Philly area are requiring masks as COVID cases rise

Three of the Philadelphia region’s largest health systems are bringing back masking requirements for patients, staff and visitors to their hospitals and clinics to prevent the spread of COVID and other respiratory illnesses as the region sees a surge in seasonal sickness.

Jefferson Health, Penn Medicine, and Temple Health all updated their mask requirements in recent days, joining Main Line Health and Cooper University Health Care, which both announced last week mask mandates in their facilities. The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is also requiring masks for patients and visitors in certain departments.

Many hospitals in the area relaxed their masking requirements last spring, when the public health emergency for the COVID pandemic expired. But with COVID and flu cases now rising again, epidemiologists at the region’s health systems are recommending masking again. Here’s the latest on mask requirements in area health care facilities:

Starting Saturday, Jefferson Health began requiring staff in patient-care locations to wear masks through at least Jan. 29. Patients are also required to mask in emergency departments, urgent care clinics, and other settings where people congregate, like rehabs and skilled nursing facilities, officials said.

At other Jefferson locations, patients with symptoms of a respiratory virus must wear a mask, and children with flulike symptoms must be immediately masked and evaluated for measles exposure, the health system said. That’s due to a recent measles outbreak involving a patient who visited Jefferson last month, which has also affected other facilities locally.

Penn Medicine has expanded its masking requirements for staff, who must now mask whenever caring for patients and in places where they might encounter patients, including hallways and lobbies.

Penn has required since the beginning of the pandemic that patients and visitors above age 2 mask in certain high-risk areas, such as emergency departments, oncology and radiation oncology clinics, transplant clinics, and infusion centers. Now the system will also require masks in urgent care waiting rooms, said Judith O’Donnell, the director of the department of infection prevention and control at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.

Outside of those high-risk areas, patients and visitors are “strongly encouraged” to mask. And patients who have tested positive for COVID within the past 10 days, or who are exhibiting symptoms like a cough, a fever, congestion, or a sore throat, are required to wear a mask. Visitors with COVID symptoms or who have tested positive in the last 10 days cannot enter any Penn Medicine facilities, the health system said on its website.

The health system tracks the level of positive COVID and flu cases among its employees, patients, and in the region to determine its masking policies, and could expand masking requirements if cases continue to rise.

“We’re in the thick of it now,” O’Donnell said. “There’s lots of COVID, and even more influenza.”

Starting Wednesday, anyone entering a Temple Health building — staff, patients, and visitors — will be required to wear a surgical mask.

“We must do everything we can to keep ourselves, our patients, and our colleagues safe and healthy,” Temple officials said in an email to staff.

Face masks are required in Temple hospitals, outpatient clinics, and community health offices. Temple will provide masks at its hospital entrances. Officials did not state when the mask requirement might end, saying Temple epidemiologists will continue to monitor data on respiratory viruses in the area.

Cases of influenza and COVID have been steadily increasing in recent weeks around the Philadelphia region and in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Monitoring individual cases of COVID is more difficult now that the public health emergency has ended. Health departments are no longer required to track cases.

Philadelphia and some of its suburbs have detected increases in COVID virus through wastewater monitoring. Health officials also look to hospitalization data to gauge the severity of the spread in the region.

Pennsylvania saw 1,738 new hospitalizations for COVID in the week of Dec. 30, 2023, about a 40% increase from the week before, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That was slightly higher than COVID hospitalizations at the same time last year, but fewer than half of the number of hospitalizations reported in January 2022 when the omicron variant caused a spike in cases.

In New Jersey, 1,318 people were admitted to the hospital in the week of Dec. 30, also about a 40% increase over the previous week.

Flu cases in New Jersey and Pennsylvania have also been increasing for the last several weeks. Pennsylvania reported more than 15,000 cases the week of Dec. 30, 2023. More than 5% of people visiting Southeastern Pennsylvania emergency departments during the last week of 2023 were diagnosed with the flu, compared with about 3% with COVID, according to state data.

New Jersey had reported nearly 8,000 cases during the same week, with state health officials noting that emergency room and outpatient visits for flulike symptoms had also increased.

Additionally, health officials in the Philadelphia area are monitoring six confirmed measles case. An outbreak of the vaccine-preventable condition, once nearly eradicated, began last month at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, which is also requiring masks for all patients and visitors in its emergency departments. Anyone with a fever or respiratory symptoms at all CHOP locations must also wear a mask, the hospital said on its website.