{"id":312833,"date":"2025-12-12T22:24:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T22:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/312833\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T22:24:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T22:24:12","slug":"rise-in-flu-cases-leads-to-nhs-trusts-putting-in-mask-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/312833\/","title":{"rendered":"Rise in flu cases leads to NHS trusts putting in mask rules"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford said it had imposed mask rules and tighter visiting arrangements as cases surged.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Meanwhile, East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust said it had also &#8220;instituted voluntary mask-wearing by patients, visitors and staff in our gateway areas&#8221;, which included emergency departments and assessment units, as well as areas where there were respiratory illnesses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Not everyone is able to wear a mask, but doing so can reduce the spread of respiratory conditions between patients and to our staff, so we appreciate everything which our patients and communities can do to help&#8221;, the trust added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;While masks will not entirely eliminate the risks of transmission of flu and respiratory viruses, they do reduce their spread and provide a degree of protection.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It can be enhanced by getting your flu vaccination and washing your hands, it added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">NHS England said there were enough flu patients nationally to fill more than three hospital trusts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Health service chiefs said the total had already increased sharply since the week covered by the data, up to Sunday, with no peak in sight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Projections suggested there could be between 5,000 and 8,000 hospital cases by the end of the second week in December. The highest ever recorded was 5,400.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford said it had imposed mask rules and tighter visiting arrangements as cases surged.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-312833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}