Editor's Note The Joint Commission on October 28 announced that beginning January 1, 2021, it is eliminating the element of performance (EP) for Infection Control Standard IC.02.04.01, which sets incremental influenza vaccination goals to try and achieve the 90% rate set by national initiatives. The US Department of Health and…

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Editor's Note In this study led by researchers from the University of Maryland School f Medicine, Baltimore, hospitalized COVID-19 patients who took low-dose aspirin daily for their heart health had a 47% lower risk of dying in the hospital than those who did not take aspirin. This retrospective analysis of…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced October 27 that it had been selected to provide Laboratory Accreditation Program services for the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). These services will be provided for moderate and high-complexity clinical laboratories at VA Medical Centers and community-based outpatient clinics. Services include education on…

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Editor's Note In the October 26 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, an analysis led by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of hospitalization data from 13 states found that 5.9% of adults hospitalized with COVID-19 between March 1 and May 31 were healthcare workers (HCWs). Among…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Office of Biostatistics and Epidemiology is currently developing master protocols to be used in monitoring the safety and effectiveness of a COVID-19 vaccine once it is authorized or approved, in addition to postmarket surveillance requirements, the October 22 Regulatory Focus reports. The…

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Editor's Note In this study from the Vermont Departments of Health and Corrections and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an officer at a correctional facility in Vermont was found to test positive for the COVID-19 virus on August 11 after multiple brief exposures to six infected incarcerated…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on October 21 updated its COVID-19 “close contact” definition to being “within 6 feet of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period,” even if the time isn’t consecutive. The previous definition…

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Editor's Note Researchers at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine and Mercy Health Saint Mary’s Hospital, Grand Rapids, Michigan, studied the COVID-19 positivity rate of asymptomatic healthcare workers (HCWs) in a 283-bed teaching hospital, and they to conclude that routine testing of HCWs is unnecessary. To effectively cohort patients,…

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Editor's Note ECRI announced October 21 that its President and CEO, Marcus Schabacker, MD, PhD, will tell the Food & Drug Administration Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee on October 22 that a thorough review of 6 months of completed clinical trial data for COVID-19 vaccines is needed to…

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Editor's Note This study, led by researchers from Memorial Hermann Texas Medical Center, Houston, is the first to use hydrogen peroxide vapor (HPV) technology on a large scale to reprocess N95 masks in a healthcare system. The researchers were able to recapture and reprocess 29,706 N95 masks using HPV, with…

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