Patients, visitors must wear masks at 4 Edmonton hospitals: AHS directive
Posted December 24, 2025 11:10 am.
Last Updated December 24, 2025 6:27 pm.
Face masks must be worn by patients and visitors at four Edmonton hospitals, according to a new Alberta Health Services (AHS) directive.
AHS implemented the enhanced masking rule at Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital, Royal Alexandra Hospital, Stollery Children’s Hospital, and University of Alberta Hospital.
All patients, designated support persons and visitors of those four acute care facilities must wear masks while in the hospitals’ emergency departments. Signage will warn people on arrival.
AHS says the directive is to “help prevent the transmission of respiratory viruses.”
The Alberta health authority adds Cancer Care Alberta has also implemented enhanced masking at Cross Cancer Institute.
According to the province’s respiratory virus dashboard, there were 2,762 documented cases of influenza in Alberta between Dec. 14 and 20. Most of those were people infected with the H3N2 virus – the dominant strain currently circulating.
H3N2 tends to make older people sicker because they’ve built up more immunity to H1N1 over the course of their lifetimes, experts say.
