SC’s largest hospital system updates employee mask policy during COVID-19 surge

South Carolina’s largest health system is enhancing facial masking measures for employees amid the steep rise in COVID-19 cases, according to a staff email obtained by The State.

Starting Wednesday, Prisma Health will expect all employees to wear masks in company facilities, regardless of vaccination status, President and CEO Mark O’Halla informed staff in an email this week.

The guidance, which applies even to employees in non-clinical buildings and offices when social distancing cannot be maintained, is necessary to protect the health of patients and colleagues, O’Halla explained.

“We have learned a great deal over the last 18 months on how to provide patient care and to do our work during the pandemic,” he wrote. “Therefore, we do not anticipate a significant interruption in our clinical activities with these additional measures that will be in place for at least the next 30 days.”

Unvaccinated employees who work in clinical settings and interact with patients, or who may enter patient rooms as part of their jobs, will be required to wear an N95 mask and eye protection while at work, according to the hospital’s new guidance.

Prisma employees who care for suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients already wear N95 masks, eye protection, gowns and gloves, and will continue to do so.

The change in safety measures comes amid an explosion of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in South Carolina that health experts attribute to the extremely contagious delta variant, which has spread rapidly through the state’s large unvaccinated population.

Weekly COVID-19 cases have surged roughly 14-fold over the past month and are now at their highest point since January, according to state Department of Health and Environmental Control data. Statewide coronavirus hospitalizations, which had dropped below 100 by early July, now exceed 1,100 and some hospitals are again facing capacity concerns.

As of Aug. 5, Prisma had 208 COVID-19 inpatients systemwide, its most since mid-February and nearly 20 times more than it had at the end of June.

Despite the surge, Gov. Henry McMaster reiterated Monday that he would not enact any sort of statewide mask mandate, something he’s declined to do since the beginning of the pandemic.

“Shutting our state down, closing schools and masking the children ... who have no choice, to protect adults who do have a choice, is the wrong thing to do, and we’re not going to do it,” he said. “We’re not going to shut our state down as other states did. Mandating masks is not the answer. Personal responsibility is the answer.”

This story was originally published August 10, 2021 at 1:03 PM.

Zak Koeske

The State

412-334-2443

Zak Koeske is a projects reporter for The State. He previously covered state government and politics for the paper. Before joining The State, Zak covered education, government and policing issues in the Chicago area. He’s also written for publications in his native Pittsburgh and the New York/New Jersey area.