Seasonal Masking Returns to Hospital Systems in Philadelphia

It seems the signal to mask has broken through to all hospital systems in southeast Pennsylvania. UPMC in Pittsburgh was the first to announce their sick-season mask policy on December 2nd. They were followed by Mainline Health, which instituted a system-wide mask requirement on January 4th.

Jefferson Health, which operates 17 hospital locations and 50+ outpatient centers in the tri-state area, began a mask policy on Saturday and plans on keeping it in place until at least the end of the month. The University of Pennsylvania Medical System is requiring masks on all patients and visitors older than 2 years of age in high-risk areas such as emergency departments, oncology and radiation oncology clinics, transplant clinics, infusion centers, and the urgent care facilities it manages.

Temple University Health System will roll out its full-mask policy on Wednesday. “We must do everything we can to keep ourselves, our patients, and our colleagues safe and healthy,” the hospital stated in an email to employees.

What is lacking from any of these announcements is if these health facilities ever updated their environmental systems that exchange and filter the air people breathe. Any industrial hygienist will always tell you masks are close to worthless compared to ventilation, dilution, and filtration of the air people breathe while inside medical facilities.