Mass General Brigham Hospital Network, Salem Hospital Become Latest To Bring Back Masks

SALEM, MA — The Mass General Brigham Hospital network — which includes Salem Hospital and Mass General Waltham — will become the latest to reinstitute mask requirements starting next week amid rising cases of respiratory illness, including COVID-19, across the region.

Mass General Brigham joins the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, which last week said all patients, staff and visitors will be required to wear masks "for the foreseeable future," in reinstating some type of mask mandate this winter.

The Mass General Brigham change will differ slightly from Dana-Farber's protocol in that while all staff will be required to mask up when in "direct interactions with patients in clinical care locations" as of Jan. 2, patients will only be "strongly encouraged" to do so.

The mandates come as the network said respiratory virus illness levels exceeded 2.85 percent — which is 1.5 times the regional baseline — for two consecutive weeks.

The protocol for when the mask requirement would be triggered was developed and put in place at the Mass General Brigham network this fall.

"With the expiration of the Public Health Emergency this past spring, health system and infection control leaders have been working to update our plans to help reduce the spread of respiratory illness in clinical settings during times of increases in respiratory virus illness," Mass General Brigham Infection Control Chief Erica Shenoy said. "The policy approach uses a variety of interventions, including targeted masking, to mitigate the risk of spread of all respiratory viruses."

When respiratory illness is declining and falls below 2.85 percent for a week, Mass General Brigham facilities will return to mild/moderate mitigation measures, and the masking required by the policy will end.

Mass General Brigham said last year local hospitals experienced respiratory infection levels as high as 7.3 percent during what many health officials called the "tripledemic" of COVIC-19, flu and RSV, which the network said contributed to "straining resources and adding to already historic capacity challenges in health care facilities across the country."

See Also:

• Flu Activity Increases In MA As COVID, RSV Cases Continue To Rise

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)