Masking will no longer be required in Alberta Health Services facilities as of June 19. This includes all facilities and contracted sites such as Alberta Precision Laboratories, Covenant Health, CapitalCare, and Carewest.
The requirement will no longer be in place for patients and visitors, as well as AHS staff including physicians, midwives, students, volunteers, and contractors.
“The decision to rescind the current requirement for continuous masking was made based on a number of factors, including declining COVID-19 cases, testing positivity rate, wastewater data and hospital admission rates for respiratory illnesses in Alberta, as well as consultation with stakeholders including patients, families, advisory councils, clinicians and frontline managers,” reads a news release from AHS.
The health authority says it respects the choice to voluntarily wear a mask and encourages people to continue to wear it if they wish.
“AHS continues to encourage visitors or designated family support persons who have had respiratory symptoms to wait to visit loved ones until 10 days after symptom onset, and all visitors and support persons are recommended to mask when visiting symptomatic patients or residents,” the news release says.
Masks will still be available at facilities for those who want to wear them.