COVID updates
Find out what you need to know before visiting our facilities.
Masking continues to be required for staff, Veterans, and visitors while in the high-risk areas listed below, including waiting areas:
- Transplant units
- Dialysis
- Chemotherapy units
- ED & urgent care
- Open Bay Medical ICUs
- SCI and CLC (staff and visitors only)
Masking also continues to be required:
- for those with a suspected or confirmed COVID-19 infection or other viral respiratory infection
- for VA staff during clinical encounters when requested by a Veteran, caregiver or family member
Masking is not universally required in the following locations:
- Acute inpatient medical/surgical units
- Acute inpatient mental health units
- Intensive care units with closed rooms
- Clinical areas where aerosol generating procedures are performed
- Laboratories collecting or handling specimens from known or suspected COVID-19 patients (e.g., areas where staff are manipulating cultures from known or suspected COVID-19 patients)
- Congregate settings and bedded residential settings (e.g., blind rehab, residential mental health, homeless shelters)
- Outpatient areas where a significant proportion of patients have high-risk for complication
VHA updated its COVID-19 Testing Guidebook and no longer requires routine testing for ambulatory procedures or for Veterans leaving and returning to a closed congregate setting. Surveillance testing for CLC and SCI-D Staff is no longer required in all circumstances.
COVID-19 vaccines
Our main hospital and clinics provide COVID-19 vaccines, Monday through Friday during business hours. There is no need to make an appointment for a COVID vaccine.