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With COVID-19 cases declining statewide, Advocate Health Care is shifting to optional masking policies and lifting visitor restrictions at all of its Illinois facilities beginning Monday.
The new policy, announced Friday, will apply to patients, visitors and staff at Advocate Health’s 10 hospitals and 250 care sites in the Chicago area. It is the first easing of masking requirements at the expansive health system since the pandemic hit more than three years ago.
“This is a really big step because we’ve had mandatory masking in place since the very beginning of the pandemic,” said Dr. Robert Citronberg, executive medical director of infectious disease and prevention at Advocate Health Care. “But now with declining rates of community transmission of COVID in all the counties in Illinois in which we serve patients, we are safely able to remove that masking requirement.”
The decision to relax masking requirements reflects COVID transmission rates that have trended lower for six weeks, and the projection by Advocate Health’s infectious disease and prevention teams that the trend will continue. Care team members will still wear masks while treating patients with respiratory infections, and any patient will have the option to request that care providers wear masks, Citronberg said during a video conference call.
The Illinois Department of Public Health announced Friday that 12 counties in the state are at a medium level for new COVID-19 cases, up from nine counties last week. The Chicago-area counties are all rated at a low level for COVID-19 cases, according to the CDC.
The state is reporting 8,560 new COVID-19 cases in Illinois last week, and 39 deaths.
Advocate Health was formed last May by the merger of Advocate Aurora Health and North Carolina-based Atrium Health, creating one of the largest health systems in the country. Illinois hospitals took the name Advocate Health Care, while Wisconsin hospitals went under the banner of Aurora Health Care.
Mask mandates will stay in place at the Aurora Health Care facilities in Wisconsin, where COVID transmission rates are higher than Illinois.
“As soon as we have acceptable rates of transmission that come down below the threshold that we need to make the changes, we will be implementing the exact same changes with masking in our Wisconsin facilities as well,” Citronberg said.
Advocate Health Care is not the only system easing masking requirements this week. Mishawaka, Indiana-based Franciscan Health, which has 11 hospitals, including five in the Chicago area, also announced Friday it will make masks optional for visitors, patients and staff beginning next week.
Four Franciscan Health facilities in northwest Indiana will go mask-optional on Monday, while Franciscan Health in south suburban Olympia Fields will implement the change on April 3.
Both Advocate and Franciscan will continue to monitor COVID-19 transmission rates, and may reinstate mask mandates if cases surge. In addition, Advocate will also be keeping an eye on seasonal respiratory viruses such as influenza, which may warrant a periodic return to masking at its health facilities.
“We may have ongoing a seasonal masking policy at our facilities,” Citronberg said. “But that really remains to be seen right now.”