Mask requirements are popping up again with the growth of the EG.5 COVID variant, including at Lionsgate, where the Hollywood studio has restarted a mask mandate for its employees.
The movie giant has told staff, via an email, that they must mask up on some floors of its Santa Monica office after several employees wound up sick with the virus. Workers were also asked to self-screen before coming into work, reports The Hollywood Reporter.
The move comes amid growing talk about the return of mask mandates, with COVID appearing to be making a late-summer push.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hospital admissions nationally are up 14% so far this week, even while experts say the EG.5 variant, a descendent of omicron, isn't any more of a concern than other variants and isn't expected to cause a major wave of coronavirus infections.
The film industry last May relaxed its COVID protocols so that masks aren't required in most workplaces.
Meanwhile, mask mandates are starting to pop up in other locations, as well.
Morris Brown College, a private liberal arts school in Atlanta, is requiring students and employees to wear face masks in lecture halls and hallways for the next two weeks after "reports of positive cases among students," reports The Daily Mail.
Students are also being told to maintain social distancing, and the college has banned all parties and large student gatherings for two weeks.
The publication also reports that government doctors and health officials in Seattle have published an editorial through the American College of Physicians calling for masks to be required in all healthcare facilities.
The doctors argued that patients are at a higher risk of becoming seriously ill or dying from COVID and would benefit from a reduced risk from other patients or healthcare workers.
Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb this weekend said that a new, highly mutated strain of COVID-19 that has popped up in Michigan does not appear to be more dangerous than other strains that are already present, while as for now, "the two strains that are circulating causing most of the infections is what's called EG.5. People have probably heard about that. It's called the 'Eris' strain."
The other strain is FL. 1.5.1, he said, adding that "both have a very similar mutation in them called a 456 mutation that allows them to pierce the immunity that we've acquired from prior infections and also from prior vaccination, so people are getting infected with that."
Meanwhile, employees at Upstate University Hospital, Upstate Community Hospital, and ambulatory clinical spaces in Syracuse have also gotten notice that the hospital is returning to COVID masking and testing policies, reports CNY Central.
"The whole point is that we're trying to protect patients and staff from virus transmission within the hospital," said Dr. Stephen Thomas, an infectious disease physician from SUNY Upstate Medical University.
Maks are also being made mandatory for all patients being admitted to the hospital, a notice said.
Upstate said that the policies are because of the EG.5 variant causing more patients to be hospitalized and staff to be out sick.
"We know unequivocally that it is here in Central New York," the statement said, "so all of these trends together have prompted us to enact mandatory masking for a period of time."
Meanwhile, though most colleges and universities have dropped strict guidelines, more than 100 schools still require vaccinations for students attending classes, while some schools, including Georgetown and Rutgers, require indoor masking, according to No College Mandates, a group that tracks COVID-19 policies in higher education.
At Rutgers, incoming students must abide by a no-exceptions vaccine mandate, and even if an exception is granted, the student's on-campus attendance is not guaranteed.
"If their choice is that they cannot be here under these conditions, we understand that," Antonio Calcado, chief operating officer at Rutgers University, commented. "We wanted to give them that … opportunity, though, to make that choice and not be rushed into that choice."