Many hospitals in New York City have chosen to reinstate their mask policies in recent days after the CDC stated that COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and the flu are seeing spikes in the area.  

Dr. Elias Youssef, of Kings County Hospital, says that the increase of those three sicknesses arriving at the hospital has been rapid, but that it was anticipated due to the cold weather and the holiday season. 

Since Thanksgiving, all NYC Health + Hospitals locations made the decision to reinstate their masking policy to include all perimeters of the hospital as more patients are showing up – some testing positive for more than one of the illnesses.  

“It’s slowly started to trickle up after the Thanksgiving holiday, and we anticipated to go even further or higher in the coming weeks,” said Youssef. “We saw firsthand in pediatric population with RSV but now we’re starting to see it with the adult population.” 

According to city data, COVID-19 hospitalizations from November compared to last week have gone up by approximately 36%.