Horizon and Vitalité drop continuous masking, with a few exceptions

Horizon and Vitalité health networks have both dropped their continuous masking requirement for patients and staff at their hospitals and health-care centres effective today, with a few exceptions.

Horizon says medical-grade masks are still required for designated support people and visitors while inside an oncology patient's room, for outpatients with COVID-19 symptoms or who have had close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19 in the last seven days, and on outbreak units.

Vitalité said wearing masks for direct patient care remains mandatory in the oncology units at the Dr. Léon-Richard Oncology Centre and at the Auberge Mgr-Henri-Cormier. Visitors and designated support persons must also wear a mask "while in proximity" to hospitalized patients.

Mask-wearing is "strongly encouraged" for hospitalized patients when moving through the corridors.

Screeners at Vitalité entrances will ask people if they have respiratory symptoms. Patients who do will be asked to wear a mask, while visitors and designated support persons with symptoms will be "asked to refrain from entering."

"We ask you to use your judgment and wear a mask if you have symptoms or have been in contact with a positive case in order to protect the most vulnerable people," Vitalité  said.

Active screening, where staff ask people questions about COVID symptoms and other potential risks, will continue in Horizon emergency departments and urgent care centres, according to the release.

Patients, designated support persons and social visitors are still required to self-screen for signs and symptoms of COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses prior to entering hospitals and health-care centres.

Patients who fail screening are advised to go directly to their appointment and inform staff, while designated support persons and social visitors who fail are advised not to enter.

Horizon staff will mask up at patient's request

Horizon will continue to provide masks to patients, social visitors, designated support people and health-care workers who choose to wear one.

"If a patient chooses to wear a face mask, health-care workers will support the patient's decision and will wear a medical grade face mask while providing patient care," according to the release.

Vitalité said its health-care workers will "assess whether a mask is required in each patient encounter and wear a mask if necessary."

The network said it considered several infection prevention and control indicators in making its decision. These include decreases in COVID-19 hospitalizations, the seven-day average positivity rate, and the number of positive employees, combined with a decrease in the number of outbreaks and health-care-related infections at Vitalité centres.

Horizon's news release did not provide reasons.

The changes come after the World Health Organization's declaration Friday that the COVID-19 pandemic no longer qualifies as a "global health emergency." It's now considered "an established and ongoing health issue," the United Nations' health agency said, citing increased immunity, fewer deaths and less pressure on hospitals.

"That does not mean COVID-19 is over as a global health threat," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. "Last week, COVID-19 claimed a life every three minutes — and that's just the deaths we know about.

"As we speak, thousands of people around the world are fighting for their lives in intensive care units. And millions more continue to live with the debilitating effects of post-COVID-19 condition."

Mandatory masking could resume

Both Horizon and Vitalité had eased masking requirements in April.

Horizon no longer required health-care workers to mask in non-clinical settings, as part of the "transition phase" of the pandemic.

Vitalité, meanwhile, lifted mandatory masking for health-care workers with some patients and patients were no longer required to wear a mask, provided they didn't have any respiratory symptoms.

Both health networks said continuous masking requirements may be reinstated based on COVID-19 numbers or activity during respiratory viral season.

New Brunswick Public Health has moved to monthly COVID-19 updates instead of weekly, "to ensure consistency in [its] reporting on respiratory illnesses," Dr. Jennifer Russell, the chief medical officer of health, has said.

The next COVIDWatch report is scheduled to be released on May 30. Weekly reports are set to resume in October.

The province recorded four more COVID deaths in the final weekly report last Tuesday, raising the province's pandemic death toll to 883.

Eleven people were admitted to the hospital because of the virus between April 23 and April 29, according to the province, while the two regional health authorities say that as of Saturday, they had 41 people hospitalized who were either admitted because of COVID or initially admitted for another reason and later tested positive.

A total of 78 new cases of COVID have been confirmed through PCR tests, with a positivity rate of 11 per cent.

The new Omicron subvariant that has caused a surge in India and has been detected in at least 33 countries, has now also spread to New Brunswick. Two cases of XBB.1.16 have been confirmed in the province to date, according to the Department of Health.