Mount Nittany Health Requiring Masks in Patient Care Areas Amid Surge in Respiratory Illnesses

Mount Nittany Health is implementing a masking requirement as respiratory illnesses rise in the local community.

Beginning at 7 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 12, masks will be required for patients, visitors and employees in all patient care clinical and common areas at the medical center, clinics and physician group offices, according to a news release on Thursday night.

“The masking requirement will remain in place for 14 days, and then we will re-evaluate with the goal of removing the requirement by January 26,” the health system wrote in the release.

The requirement comes as Mount Nittany Health has observed an increase in flu, RSV and COVID cases within the community and among patients employees.

Respiratory virus activity has been on the rise statewide and nationally, according to the most recent update from the Centers for Disease Control.

As of Jan. 5, the amount of respiratory illness — having symptoms of fever with cough or sore throat — causing people to seek healthcare is elevated or increasing across most of the United States.

Thirty-eight states are experiencing high or very high activity. Pennsylvania is listed as having a high respiratory illness level.

Levels have mostly been on the rise nationally and locally since late September, with influenza surging through December while RSV and COVID plateaued.

Combined respiratory illness in the Centre-Clearfield Health Service Area (Centre, Clearfield and Jefferson counties) represented 11.2% of emergency department visits around Christmas before dropping to 8.3% at the end of December, when the most recent data available was recorded

Flu had the highest percentage of positive tests locally for the week ending Dec. 30 at 17.5%, with COVID at 12.4% and RSV at 10.2%.

Mount Nittany Health most recently had an employee mask requirement for two weeks in September amid a rise in COVID cases. Prior to that a masking policy for all visitors and patients that had been in place at Mount Nittany locations since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 mostly came to an end last April, when only those who were symptomatic or positive for the virus were required to mask.