Some hospitals around the country have been reimplementing mask rules for visitors as they see increasing numbers of flu, RSV, and COVID cases this winter. Does Corewell Health South in St. Joseph have plans to do the same?
Corewell Health South Chief Medical Officer Dr. Robert Nolan tells us they look at the issue every week, and for now, there’s no mask rule.
“We are currently at the same threshold we have been for most of the upper respiratory season, which is a combination this year of RSV, COVID, and influenza with mostly influenza A, and right now, we are not requiring visitors to mask,” Nolan said. “We are highly recommending that if you have any symptoms that you mask for the safety of yourself and patients. We’re recommending if you have any symptoms, really, to try to avoid the hospital because we certainly don’t want to spread anything unnecessarily throughout the hospital or anything else along that line.”
Nolan says the hospitals in St. Joseph and Niles are at capacity, but not necessarily because of patients with respiratory illnesses.
If Corewell determines the respiratory illnesses are high enough, then there could be a masking rule for the sake of everyone staying there.
Nolan says if the rules change, the community will be notified. He adds anyone who wants to wear a mask when visiting can certainly do so, and again asks those who are sick to stay away or at least mask up.
Some hospitals in Chicago are telling visitors to mask up, and Memorial Hospital and Elkhart General in Indiana returned to masking rules in late December.
