In what is becoming an annual rite of winter in the Lowell General Hospital and Tufts Medical communities, healthcare workers in direct patient care areas will once again have to mask up beginning Monday, December 23.

The directive came down this past Thursday, though requirement does not apply to patients, visitors or workers not involved directly in patient care.

If you’re experiencing deja vu, could be because a similar edict came down last December 29 for Lowell General Hospital and extended to all Tufts Medicine facilities on January 3, 2024. That one, while also not applying to patients or visitors, was a requirement for  “healthcare workers in all patient rooms, care spaces and when providing community based care.”

Masking in medical facilities switched from mandatory to optional in May of 2023, when Governor Maura Healey finally ended the Covid State of Emergency, which had gone in effect in March of 2020.

The most recent mandate is “designed to reduce infection risk” in response to “increased respiratory virus circulation in the community,” according to the staff memo from Dr. Shira Doron, Chief Infection Control Officer for Tufts Medicine.

It states “patients and visitors are encouraged, but not required, to wear masks, particularly in patient rooms and care spaces.”

Meanwhile, Doctors, nurses and clinical staff won’t be the only smiling faces you won’t get to see. Housekeeping and food service employees will also have to don masks in patient care areas.