COVID-19 cases, vaccine campaigns helped prompt mask mandate’s return, doctor says

Mask mandate comes into effect on Monday.

Elizabeth Whitten, CBC News NL Oct 30, 2025

A 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.

“[It’s] just to get people thinking about the things that they can do to prevent infection in themselves and in their neighbours.”

Free COVID-19 and influenza vaccines are available across the province.

Bridger said there’s a number of COVID-19 cases in hospitals, but health staff also want to get ahead of cases of common respiratory viruses like influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, as well as uncommon viruses like parainfluenza.

Bridger said they want to curb the spread of viruses and the risk of additional cases.

“If we learned anything from the pandemic, we learned that masks work and it would be silly to not apply some of the knowledge we gleaned from the pandemic,” she said.

Clinic settings require masks

Starting Monday, Bridger said people will need to wear masks in hospital settings where patients are receiving clinical care, including waiting rooms and hospital rooms. However, she said, masks aren’t required in the cafeteria and lobbies.

She said the health authority is constantly looking at current case counts, which are updated every week, and that information will help inform them when the mask mandate could be lifted.

WATCH | Masks will be mandatory in clinical settings starting Monday

Beginning Monday, masks will be required in all clinical areas of health-care facilities throughout the province. The move comes as the number of infections from respiratory illnesses is rising. The CBC’s Zach Goudie has more.

“We’re looking at the trends, we’re looking at our outbreaks in the hospital. And so it’s a real iterative process,” she said.

“Right now we’re saying that we’ll re-examine the mask mandate at the end of March 2026 and we’ll see how we’re doing with our respiratory infections then.”

In a follow-up statement to CBC News, Bridger said the health authority has some flexibility in its guidance and it extended last year’s mask mandate due to a bad flu season.

“But I don’t anticipate being able to end the requirement prior to the end of March,” she wrote in an e-mail.

‘Harder to predict’

Bridger said they’ve only seen a few cases of influenza A so far, but she expects those numbers to increase as that’s typically the case during the fall and winter season.

In January, Newfoundland and Labrador had a “brutal” influenza outbreak, which she said was unusual in timing because the surge of cases usually happens around the holiday season.

“One thing that has been unusual since the pandemic is that things have become harder to predict. And it’s been harder to predict what infections are going to be problematic and when they’re going to be problematic,” Bridger said.

She said it’s too early to say if this year will be a repeat of last year in terms of high influenza cases.

Elizabeth Whitten Reporter

Elizabeth Whitten is a journalist with CBC News, based in St. John’s.

With files from The St. John’s Morning Show

Source CBC News NL

 

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