VACCINE NEWS
Free COVID-19 Vaccine Education for Long-Term Care Providers Webinar – February 11th, 1:30 PM
Presented By: Tiffany A. Dickey, PharmD, BCIDP, Medical Science Liaison Vaccines, US Medical Affairs, Sanofi Pasteur. Tiffany will share scientific fact-based information that will help long-term care providers talk with residents and staff about the current COVID-19 vaccinations safety and efficacy. Topics will include:
- mRNA Technology
- Vaccine Regulatory & Approval Processes
- ACIP GRADE Analysis on mRNA Efficacy & Safety Data
- Vaccine Advocacy Information for Resident and Staff Conversations
- CDC COVID-19 Resources Employers Can Distribute to Residents & Staff
Sponsored by KACE, Kansas Health Care Association and LeadingAge Kansas. No CEUs will be awarded. Our thanks to KACE for handling logistics. Register here.
CDC Vaccine News
- New MMWR from CDC on vaccination rates in nursing homes. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report shows that nearly 80% of nursing home residents and less than 40% of staff received the COVID-19 vaccine in the first month of the federal Pharmacy Partnership Program. CDC emphasizes that “ensuring long-term care staff have access to COVID-19 vaccination – and confidence in the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines – is a public health priority to protect more people from getting COVID-19 infections.”
- Do you Have Vaccine-Related Questions for CDC? LeadingAge has weekly vaccine meetings with CDC. Please send any questions you want to “run up the flagpole” to Ruth and they will compile them to take to their meeting with CDC.
- CDC has updated their resource page on COVID-19 vaccinations. Topics: Benefits of the vaccine, community mitigation framework, toolkits, and more.
- Long-Term Care Facility Toolkit: Preparing for COVID-19 Vaccination (cdc.gov)
Vaccine-Related Highlights of National Associations’ Vaccine Discussion with CMS Yesterday
Questions are coming up from providers now that vaccination is becoming wide-spread. Some examples offered by the associations, 1) How do we handle requests that residents be cared for by vaccinated staff only; 2) Can a facility deny admission based on vaccination status? 3) Can a facility cohort based on vaccination status? CMS staff offered these responses:
- An individual’s vaccination status is protected health information. Residents and families don’t have the right to know which residents or staff have been vaccinated. Likewise, staff may not necessarily have the right to know whether a resident has been vaccinated.
- Requests to be cared for by vaccinated staff only should be handled like any other staffing request. Residents have the right to request specific staff, nursing homes should consider and accommodate requests as able, but are not required to accommodate requests.
- Requests to room with vaccinated roommates only should be handled like any other room change request. Residents have the right to request a room change, nursing homes should consider and accommodate requests as able, but are not required to accommodate requests.
- Cohorting according to vaccination status: CMS notes that it may be in a facility’s best interest to cohort according to vaccination status; however, there is no requirement to cohort and no requirement prohibiting cohorting. But be careful not to cross the line from health and safety measures into discrimination and resident rights violations.
- Vaccination status impact on admission: Admission cannot be denied solely based on vaccination status or vaccine hesitancy.
Here’s a Vaccine Hesitancy Resource You Can Use with Your Team
It includes PowerPoint and Word document versions. View the resource.
Kansas COVID-19 Vaccination Overview
- 198,350 People Vaccinated
- 249,724 Total Doses Reported as Administered
– First Dose: 198,350
– Second Dose: 51,374 - 413,350 Total Doses Distributed
– State Distributed: 311,950
– Federal LTC Program: 101,400 - 6.8% of Kansans Vaccinated
- This is a 1.7% increase from last week.
STATE NEWS
Important Highlights of Our Weekly Association Meeting with KDADS
- CMS’s criteria for required Infection Control Surveys (IFS) have changed, which has resulted in a steep decline in the number of these surveys that KDADS is required to complete. Read more. Thank you to LeadingAge national for their efforts to get this change accomplished. KDADS was also a vocal proponent among state survey agencies for decreasing the number of redundant, duplicative, time-consuming IFSs.
- KDADS is resuming annual nursing home resurveys, but because of the heavy IFS requirement, there at over 100 providers that are more than 15.9 months since their last “annual.”
- There are updated FAQs for Visitation posted with all the other COVID-19 guidance documents on the KDADS COVID-19 guidance documents webpage.
- KDADS has published their new internal policy/protocol for Survey Staff Testing and PPE. Our thanks to our counterparts at KHCA and KACE for intensely partnering to advocate for this.
- KDADS will be conducting routine virtual briefings for adult care homes on testing and vaccination, beginning as early as next week. We will publish more details as soon as we get them.
UHC Care Packages Arriving
United Health Care has confirmed that they sent out COVID boxes to support all of their contracted nursing facilities. UHC provider advocates may have reached out in advance to let providers know. The advocate that was assigned to reach out to your staff is off today, but I will confirm with her that she was able to connect with someone on your staff when she is back in the office.
Kansas COVID-19 Cluster Summary
As of February 3rd, there are 10 long-term care facilities with clusters. The number of long-term care facilities with clusters is half of what there were last week. Six of those affected by clusters are LeadingAge Kansas members.
Statewide Active COVID-19 Clusters
- Clusters: 272
- Cases: 13,279
- Hospitalizations: 471
Long-Term Care Facilities with Active Cluster Case Information
- Clusters: 144
- Cases: 4,173
- Hospitalizations: 288
Active statewide and long-term care clusters have decreased from last week.
Kansas COVID-19: Case Rates
- Cases: 278,915
- Total Case Rate Per 1,000: 95.74
- Daily Cases Diagnosed: 748
TESTING NEWS
KDHE Will Continue to Offer COVID-19 Testing, Including for Patients, Residents and Staff of LTCs, at No Cost Through June 30thAs the State looks for opportunities to improve testing access across Kansas, there may be updates to programs over the coming weeks and months. Questions? Email scott.brunner@ks.gov.
BD Long Term Care Provider Survey on Testing
BD asks nursing home providers take 5 minutes to answer this brief survey about their current approaches to testing, including barriers being encountered.
FEDERAL NEWS
Federal Retail Pharmacy Program Update
Jeff Zients, The President’s COVID-19 Response Team coordinator provided an update yesterday on steps being taken to enact the Administration’s National Action Strategy to change the course of this pandemic. It includes increasing vaccine supply, expansion of the number of vaccination sites, and additional support for states. “Starting February 11th, the Federal Government will supply vaccines directly to select pharmacies across the country. This will provide more sites for people to get vaccinated in their communities…,” Zients noted. The pharmacies participating will initially have limited supply and will be rolled out to 6,500 stores nationwide prior initially.
CDC Monitoring Variants
CDC updated their page on variant cases.The emerging variants CDC is closely monitoring have mutations in the virus genome that alter the characteristics and cause the virus to act differently in ways that are significant to public health (e.g., causes more severe disease, spreads more easily between humans, requires different treatments, changes the effectiveness of current vaccines). It’s important to understand that genetic mutations are expected, and some variants can spread and become predominant while others subside.
LEADINGAGE KANSAS NEWS
Friday’s Weekly Webinars are a Must Attend
Jump on each week for information and updates about the coronavirus, Fridays at 10 AM. Register here.
Coping with COVID Mondays and Thursdays
Join us to work through the trauma of the impact of the pandemic on aging services providers.
LEADINGAGE NATIONAL NEWS
OTHER RESOURCES
Monoclonal Therapy
This national map displays locations that have received shipments under the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) authority, within the past several weeks. (Note: The monoclonal antibodies treatments bamlanivimab (made by Eli Lilly and Company) and the therapeutic cocktail casirivimab/imdevimab (made by Regeneron) are laboratory-made proteins that mimic the immune system’s ability to fight off harmful pathogens such as viruses. Monoclonal antibodies treatments are given to help treat patients with COVID-19.)
THANK YOU TO OUR GOLD PARTNER
