The universal mandatory wearing of masks in hospitals and other healthcare areas by patients, visitors and staff has come to an end this week. It follows recent advice from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre. It will now be a matter for each hospital to decide on how this should apply in practice. Sam McConkey is an infectious Disease Specialist at the RCSI University of Medicine and Jack Lambert is Professor of Infectious Diseases at the UCD school of Medicine.Joined Kieran to discuss their reaction to the news.