{"id":10573,"date":"2026-11-03T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/?p=10573"},"modified":"2026-11-11T15:44:26","modified_gmt":"2026-11-11T20:44:26","slug":"flu-season-has-arrived-earlier-than-normal-nova-scotia-health-again-requires-masking-at-all-facilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/news\/flu-season-has-arrived-earlier-than-normal-nova-scotia-health-again-requires-masking-at-all-facilities\/","title":{"rendered":"Flu season has arrived earlier than normal: Nova Scotia Health again requires masking at all facilities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Masks are now mandatory at all Nova Scotia Health facilities as influenza cases start to climb earlier than normal, the health authority announced Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>This includes all hospitals, emergency rooms, Nova Scotia Health clinics, long-term care facilities and health homes.<\/p>\n<p>The mandate comes a month earlier than last year.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Shelly McNeil, senior medical director of the Emerging and Re-Emerging Infections Network, said it\u2019s because Nova Scotia is experiencing an earlier rise in influenza cases.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve been seeing this increase across the country, and we have also been seeing earlier hospitalizations and earlier upticks in emergency department visits for COVID-19 and flu, or for acute respiratory illness, that\u2019s much earlier than typically seen here,\u201d said McNeil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Masks are now mandatory at all Nova Scotia Health facilities as influenza cases start to climb earlier than normal, the health authority announced Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>This includes all hospitals, emergency rooms, Nova Scotia Health clinics, long-term care facilities and health homes.<\/p>\n<p>The mandate comes a month earlier than last year.<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/news\/flu-season-has-arrived-earlier-than-normal-nova-scotia-health-again-requires-masking-at-all-facilities\/\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Flu season has arrived earlier than normal: Nova Scotia Health again requires masking at all facilities<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[96,18,23,77,19,218,14,143],"class_list":["post-10573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-canada","tag-covid-19","tag-hospitals","tag-influenza","tag-masks","tag-nova-scotia","tag-sars-cov-2","tag-universal-masking","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10573"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10577,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10573\/revisions\/10577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}