Effective tomorrow, Tuesday, March 7 at 7 a.m., visitor restrictions for children age 12 and under will be lifted at all Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist inpatient locations:
- Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center
- Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Brenner Children’s Hospital
- Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Davie Medical Center
- Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist High Point Medical Center
- Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Lexington Medical Center
- Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Wilkes Medical Center
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is experiencing significant parking constraints due to ongoing construction, so hospitalized patients remain limited to two healthy visitors at a time and those arriving for outpatient visits at the Medical Center may bring one visitor. All other Wake Forest Baptist locations will be fully open to visitors.
The rates of influenza, COVID-19 and other respiratory infections have continued to decline in our area over the past several weeks,” said Dr. Christopher Ohl, infectious disease expert at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist and professor of infectious diseases at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. “We continue to monitor viruses circulating in our communities, and we feel it is appropriate to lift these restrictions so that healthy children can visit family members or loved ones who are patients at our hospitals.”
Before deciding to lift visitor restrictions, infection prevention teams from Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist and five other health systems – Atrium Health, CaroMont Health, Cone Health, Novant Health and Randolph Health – coordinated to ensure all were seeing similar downward trends to warrant lifting restrictions at all hospitals.
In accordance with CDC and regulatory guidance, these health systems continue to require masks to be worn by patients, visitors and teammates at all hospitals and outpatient clinics.
The spread of viruses can be reduced by washing hands frequently with soap, using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, avoiding touching the eyes, nose or mouth, practicing good hygiene and staying home from work or school if experiencing a fever or feeling ill.
As always, anyone planning to visit patients at any hospital should be healthy and should not have fever, cough, colds or stomach virus symptoms.
Learn more about visitor guidelines.
Media contacts:
Jenna Kurzyna, jkurzyna@wakehealth.edu
Joe McCloskey, jmcclosk@wakehealth.edu