STATE NEWS

KDHE’s Weekly COVID-19 Stakeholder Update Newsletter
Subscribe today to stay up to date on the latest from KDHE. Read their latest issue from January 6^th.

VISITATION NEWS

CMS Has Revised their Nursing Home Visitation FAQ
Read more details from Friday’s Edition of the COVID Update. The document can be found here.

FEDERAL NEWS

Supreme Court Arguments on the CMS Interim Final Rule and OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on Friday (nearly 4 hours long) on the challenges to the CMS Interim Final Rule (IFR) and OSHA Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS). The Supreme Court website contains links to the briefs filed in both cases and the audio recordings of the arguments will be posted on their website soon. Both cases were before the Supreme Court on emergency petitions to determine whether injunctions should be issued pending trials on the merits of these challenges to the respective rules. The Supreme Court decisions should provide some much-needed clarity while these cases weave throughout the courts over the next few months.

Here is a good blog post about today’s oral arguments if you are interested in reading about the oral arguments instead of listening to them for hours. We will alert you to the decisions as soon as they are available.

• OSHA ETS Case. Based on the oral arguments and the questions asked by the justices, the court seemed skeptical of 1) the breadth of the OSHA Vaccination and Testing ETS and 2) the authority of the agency to issue such an ETS. The consensus of legal pundits and reporters appears to be that it would not be surprising if the Supreme Court ruled to enjoin the enforcement of the OSHA Vaccination and Testing ETS at this point.
• CMS IFR Case. On the CMS case, however, the justices seemed more receptive to arguments that CMS has the authority to issue regulations under the relevant statutes governing the Medicare and Medicaid programs for specific providers. There were many comments that the CMS interim final rule was more narrowly directed to the entities that it has the power to regulate under various other circumstances and that the CMS IFR was not nearly as broad as the OSHA ETS. Nonetheless, it will be a closer call on whether the court allows the CMS IFR to proceed fully, limits is to certain providers types based the specific language of each relevant statute, or enjoins the CMS IFR from proceeding at this point.

CMS to Post Weekend Staffing Levels and Turnover in Medicare.gov Care Compare 
As LeadingAge has been announcing and reporting for the past few months. Last week, CMS released QSO-22-08-NH, a memo titled “Nursing Home Staff Turnover and Weekend Staffing Levels,” announcing that Medicare Compare will now include: the level of total nursing (RN, LPN and CNA) and RN staffing on weekends provided by the nursing home over the quarter using PBJ submissions. The posting of this data will begin in January 2022. CMS will add the measure of total nursing staffing on the weekends to the staffing rate domain in Care Compare – Five Star beginning in July 2022. CMS also released the plan to post staff turnover data in January 2022. This will include the percentage of RNs that left over the last year, the total number of nursing staff and the number of administrators. The information will be added to Care Compare this month and included in five-star ratings in the staffing domain in July 2022.

What We Know About Quarantine and Isolation — Why CDC Shortened Isolation and Quarantine for the General Population
COVID-19 cases due to the Omicron variant have increased along with seasonal increases in influenza and other respiratory virus infections. The potential for a large number of cases raises serious concerns about societal impact due to illness, as well as isolation and quarantine requirements. CDC has been monitoring the emerging science on when and for how long a person is maximally infectious with Omicron, as well as the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and booster doses against Omicron infection. Data related to the mental health effects of the pandemic and adherence to prevention interventions have also been considered. To learn more, please visit: What We Know About Quarantine and Isolation | CDC .

COVID-19 Real-Time Learning Network: Antiviral Updates — Molnupiravir, Paxlovid & Remdesivir
Antivirals are a class of drug that inhibit viral replication and are commonly used against influenza. According to NIH, antivirals’ role in COVID-19 treatment is to “inhibit viral entry via the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor and transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2); viral membrane fusion and endocytosis; or the activity of the SARS-CoV-2 3-chymotrypsin-like protease (3CLpro) and the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. Because viral replication may be particularly active early in the course of COVID-19, antiviral therapy may have the greatest impact before the illness progresses to the hyperinflammatory state that can characterize the later stages of disease, including critical illness.” Learn More

3G Cellular Communicators on a Fire Alarm System Must Be Upgraded
More information can be found here.

VACCINATION NEWS

Stay Up to Date with Your Vaccines
The technical definition of “fully vaccinated” – two doses of an mRNA vaccine or one dose of the J&J vaccine – has not changed. Individuals are considered fully vaccinated once they have received their primary series. However, to align with standard language CDC uses about other vaccinations, CDC will now use the phrase “up to date” when talking about COVID-19 vaccination. CDC recommends that individuals stay “up to date” by receiving any additional doses they are eligible for, according to CDC’s recommendations, to ensure they have optimal protection against COVID-19. To learn more, please visit: Stay Up to Date with Your Vaccines | CDC

LEADINGAGE KANSAS NEWS

Join us Friday for our Weekly Webinar
Join us this Friday for more up-to-date information and a rundown of the first week of the 2022 Legislative Session. Weekly Webinars are on Fridays at 10 AM. Register for 2022 here.

Please Complete Our Survey About Temporary Staffing Agencies
Deadline Extended January 11^th. The survey, which is a joint effort with us and KHCA, will help us better understand the staffing agency landscape and advocate on your behalf during the 2022 state legislative session.

LEADINGAGE NATIONAL NEWS

COVID Status: Member Check-In
LeadingAge is surveying members to learn about the COVID-related issues they are presently facing and to determine how we can best support your needs. The Kansas responses will be shared with LeadingAge Kansas to help with our advocacy efforts. Thank you for answering these short questions. Deadline COB TODAY, close of business.

LeadingAge Coronavirus Update Calls
Having problems parsing CDC quarantine/isolation guidelines for “everyone” versus those for health care workers? You’re not alone. Check out our Monday, January 10th 2:30 PM CT Update call to hear from Dr. Nimalie Stone of CDC. She will explain the most recent CDC guidance on isolation after a positive test, the December 23rd updated recommendations for healthcare personnel and strategies for mitigating staffing shortages, CDC’s work to promote boosters and other CDC issues. As always, Nimalie will explain things clearly and directly and take caller questions.

On Wednesday, January 12th at 2:30 PM CT, we will welcome back Harvard’s David Grabowski to talk about vaccine mandates, Omicron, booster acceptance by staff, the staffing crisis and more and how these are changing the landscape in long term care.

If you haven’t registered for LeadingAge Update Calls, you can do so here.

Vaccine Mandate Basics, in the Hub 
A Vaccine Mandate QuickCast is live on the LeadingAge Learning Hub. Navigating the Latest CMS Vaccine Mandate Guidance is an 18-minute QuickCast, with Janine Finck-Boyle reviewing what the enforcement of a vaccination mandate for CMS-certified facilities means for nursing homes. A very helpful resource for compliance.

New Insights and Tools from LeadingAge
LeadingAge staff experts are developing essential advocacy, guidance, and tools, and curating the most relevant resources for aging services providers, including: 

• Nursing Home Weekly Recap
• Life Plan Community Weekly Recap
• Home Health and Hospice Weekly Recap
• PACE Weekly Recap
• Senior Housing Weekly Recap
• Mandate Minute, Week 7
• HUD Examines Feasibility of National Evictions Database 
• Use of State and Local Relief Funds Expanded, Clarified

A complete timeline of insights, tools, and useful links is available here, so you’ll never miss an update.

RESOURCES

The National Institutes of Health: The COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel’s Interim Statement on Patient Prioritization for Outpatient Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Therapies or Preventive Strategies When There Are Logistical or Supply Constraints
The COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel (the Panel) has recommended several therapeutic agents for the treatment and prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection in individuals who are at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19. These anti-SARS-CoV-2 therapeutics are of greatest benefit for non-hospitalized patients who have risk factors for progression to severe COVID-19. The risks for progression are substantially higher for those who are not vaccinated or who are vaccinated but not expected to mount an adequate immune response to the vaccine. Learn More

The National Institutes of Health: The COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel’s Statement on Therapies for High-Risk, Nonhospitalized Patients With Mild to Moderate COVID-19
Prior to mid-December 2021, the anti-SARS-CoV-2 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) bamlanivimab plus etesevimab, casirivimab plus imdevimab, and sotrovimab were the only therapies recommended by the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel (the Panel) for nonhospitalized patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 who are at high risk of progressing to severe disease. Since then, the B.1.1.529 (Omicron) variant of concern (VOC) has become the dominant variant in many parts of the United States.1 This variant, which has numerous mutations in the spike protein, is predicted to have markedly reduced susceptibility to bamlanivimab plus etesevimab and casirivimab plus imdevimab. Learn More

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