Red Bank’s Riverview Medical Center has revived its pandemic-era mask mandate for all staff and visitors “due to an increase in COVID-19 prevalence,” its owner announced Wednesday.

Anti-masking and anti-vaccine protestors outside Riverview in August, 2021. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)

In a statement issued Wednesday, Riverview owner Hackensack Meridian Health said it was “requiring [that] all patients, visitors and staff wear masks” at Riverview and the following facilities:

• Southern Ocean Medical Center and Ocean University Medical Center in Ocean County
• Old Bridge Medical Center in Middlesex County
• Carrier Clinic in Somerset County

“This decision was made due to an increase in COVID-19 prevalence in these hospitals, facilities and communities,” HMH spokesperson Jessica Cohen Nussman said in a statement to Patch, which first reported the reinstatement. “Currently, masking is strongly encouraged, but not required at our other hospitals and facilities. We continue to closely monitor COVID-19 activity in our communities and other hospitals.”

HMH mandated mask-wearing for all patients, visitors and staff in its facilities early on in the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Effective April 12 of this year, it dropped the universal masking requirement “in accordance with HMH’s policies and in alignment with” recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and the NJDOH, the statement said.

In a FAQ on its website, HMH said it determines when and where to implement masking requirements by county based on COVID-19 levels.

“This determination is made by assessing any available data, including, but not limited to: the community transmission level for the county, the trends over at least two weeks, asymptomatic COVID positivity upon admission, out of work Team Members and the severity/infectivity of the predominant COVID-19 variant,” the statement said.

Last week, the New Jersey Department of Health reported that 1.7 percent of emergency department visits in the week leading up to September 21 were diagnosed as COVID-19, an increase from the prior week, while hospital admission levels for the virus were “low” in all but two counties: Atlantic and Cape May, where they were classified as “medium.”

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