Nova Scotia Health says masking is required throughout all its facilities beginning Thursday.
However, the health authority says masks are not required in:
Three children have died from flu-related complications in the Ottawa area this month, as officials warn of a “rapid and significant rise” in influenza A cases.
In a statement released Monday morning, Ottawa Public Health said three children between the ages of five and nine have died from influenza A-related complications in the Ottawa and Eastern Ontario Health Unit regions during the first two weeks of December.
Comments closedThe Centre intégré de santé et de services sociaux (CISSS) de l’Outaouais has decided to reinstate mandatory mask wearing upon entry into its care facilities.
Starting on Tuesday, wearing a mask is mandatory in hospital centres, including the outpatient ward, the Pierre-Janet mental health hospital (including units 5 and 6 of the juvenile wing), the Physical rehabilitation centre, La RessourSe, residential and long-term care centres and seniors’ homes and alternative housing.
Comments closedAn early start to Canada’s flu season is hitting children hard, sending a flood of young patients into multiple pediatric hospitals as medical teams warn that emergency visits and admissions could keep climbing in the weeks ahead.
At CHEO, eastern Ontario’s children’s hospital in Ottawa, eight times more children tested positive for influenza in November compared with the same month in 2024, while double the number of children needed to be hospitalized. Most of those children hadn’t had a seasonal flu vaccine, according to CHEO’s emergency department team.
Comments closedOntario wrote off more than one billion items of personal protective equipment at a cost of $1.4 billion since 2021, the province’s auditor general found.
Shelley Spence found the province continues to purchase masks, gowns and other protective gear at the same levels as the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, despite significantly declining demand.
“We found that expired products began to accumulate in the provincial stockpile as some of the products purchased during the pandemic fell short of desired quality standards and were not used,” Spence wrote in her annual report.
Comments closedFormer British prime minister Boris Johnson oversaw a “toxic,” “chaotic” and dithering response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with a delay in locking the country down resulting in about 23,000 more deaths, a report by a public inquiry concluded on Thursday.
Britain recorded more than 230,000 deaths from COVID, a similar death rate to the United States and Italy but higher than elsewhere in western Europe, and it is still recovering from the economic consequences.
An inquiry, which Johnson ordered in May 2021, delivered a blistering assessment of his government’s response to the pandemic, criticizing his indecisive leadership, lambasting his Downing Street office for breaking their own rules and castigating his top adviser, Dominic Cummings.
Comments closedSome Alberta pediatricians say making childhood immunizations routinely available in pediatric hospitals could help improve slumping vaccination rates in the province.
But the Alberta government is closing the door on that idea, saying children’s hospitals are under significant pressure, and it’s taking other steps to improve access.
Dr. Sam Wong, president of the section of pediatrics with the Alberta Medical Association, said he and his colleagues have been advocating for this change for several years.
Comments closedCHEO is reinstating public health measures for visitors to the hospital as viral season begins.
Beginning Monday (Nov. 17), visitors will be asked to wear masks while in all waiting areas and during clinical interactions. CHEO will also begin limiting visitors. There will be a limit of one caregiver for patients attending appointments, and no visitors under the age of 12 — including siblings — will be allowed.
The precautions are being taken to help reduce the spread of viruses and protect those who visit the hospital and its community locations, spokesperson Karl Oczkowski said.
Comments closedUniversity Health Network (UHN) has announced a new requirement for staff, patients and visitors to wear a mask when inside its facilities.
Masks must be worn in all UHN facilities, including Toronto General Hospital, Toronto Western Hospital and the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre as of Tuesday, Nov. 18.
All staff, patients and visitors will be expected to wear a mask in physician offices, waiting rooms for clinics, the emergency department and other outpatient clinical areas. Patients and staff must also wear a mask when delivering or receiving direct care, or when staff are closely interacting with patients in inpatient, outpatient and emergency clinical areas.
Comments closedA temporary mask mandate is coming back to Newfoundland and Labrador’s hospitals and long-term care facilities, and one doctor says the driving force is two-fold — a rise in COVID-19 cases and the availability of vaccines.
On Wednesday, Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services announced it was temporarily bringing back mandatory masking in clinical settings effective Monday. The release cited an increase in infectious diseases circulating.
“The timing of the mask requirement was a little bit deliberate to coincide with the timing of the COVID-19 and influenza vaccine campaigns,” Dr. Natalie Bridger, an infectious disease specialist, told CBC Radio’s The St. John’s Morning Show.
Comments closedThe Jewish General Hospital has reinstated a mask mandate for medical staff as the flu season has begun much earlier than usual this year, prompting fears that some elderly and vulnerable individuals might not get their vaccines on time.
“It’s not a bad thing to reinstate wearing masks in a hospital because you have sick people by default and you have high-risk patients,” Dr. Karl Weiss, chief of the division of infectious diseases at the Jewish General, told The Gazette.
Comments closedLUCENA CITY — Citing a spike in influenza-like illnesses, Quezon Governor Angelina Tan has reinstated the mandatory wearing of face masks.
“Due to the increasing number of cases of illnesses such as colds, coughs, influenza-like illness, and severe respiratory infections like community-acquired pneumonia—and in accordance with Executive Order No. DHT-60—the wearing of face masks is hereby strictly mandated in all indoor settings, as well as in outdoor areas where physical distancing cannot be observed,” Tan, a medical doctor, said in a Facebook post on Sunday afternoon, Oct. 19.
Comments closedMandatory masking is back at health facilities across Prince Edward Island as public health officials work to reduce the spread of respiratory illnesses.
The newest numbers from Canada’s respiratory virus surveillance report show that during the week ending Oct. 4, COVID-19 activity was increasing on the Island, with about 20 per cent of tests coming back positive. Nationally, the average was under 10 per cent.
Comments closedOfficials with Health P.E.I. say people will have to wear masks inside all of the provincial health authority’s facilities beginning next week.
The policy is being put in place in response to the growing presence of respiratory illnesses on the Island.
Lara MacMurdo, director of occupational health, safety and wellness with Health P.E.I., said rates of respiratory illness are often higher this time of year.
Comments closedHorizon Health Network has reintroduced mandatory masking in all patient-facing clinical areas in all of its facilities, starting Wednesday, citing a rise in respiratory virus activity.
All health-care workers, patients, social visitors, and designated support people will be required to wear a medical grade face mask, also known as a surgical or procedure mask, at all times in all inpatient units, outpatient/ambulatory care clinics and emergency departments, and any other clinical setting, including waiting areas.
“With this upward trend, and knowing this time of year historically leads to further increase of viral transmission, Horizon is taking a proactive and precautionary measure,” the regional health authority said in a news release Tuesday.
Comments closedLocal podcaster Daniella Barreto called her latest project Public Health Is Dead to capture her frustration with how leaders handled the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It seemed like all of these things we’re taught in school, like prevention being key and using evidence to make decisions, was thrown out the window,” Barreto told The Tyee. “Mask mandates were being taken away, people were increasingly getting long COVID, and I decided I needed to do something because people were not getting the information they needed.”
Launching the podcast in November 2024, Barreto used her background in public health, with a master of science in population public health from the University of British Columbia and a bachelor of science in health science from Simon Fraser University, to help explain what went wrong. So far she’s released five episodes and has many more in the works.
Comments closedFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 31, 2025 (British Columbia) – BC patients and health advocates are speaking out against the provincial government’s decision to drop healthcare mask requirements, at a time when there are multiple illness outbreaks in medical settings. Public health groups DoNoHarm BC, Protect Our Province BC, and the Canadian Covid Society warn that the move endangers vulnerable patients and frontline workers, while harming the sustainability and cost-effectiveness of BC’s healthcare system.
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