Editor's Note This July 10 report from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) provides detailed demographic and clinical information on a subset of 10,647 people who died with COVID-19 (ie, decedents) in 16 US public health jurisdictions between February 12 and May 18. The researchers found that: 60.6%…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced July 1 that it has made two sets of standards changes for deemed-status hospitals and critical access hospitals. The first set of changes, which went into effect July 1, was made in response to hospital deeming renewal applications with the Centers for Medicare &…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on July 8 announced that because of extended data submission timelines and optional reporting for fourth quarter 2019 data due to COVID-19, the planned July 2020 display of two ORYX Perinatal Care measures on Quality Check has been placed on hold. The measures are: PC-02…

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Editor's Note The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci says COVID-19 vaccine candidates will start moving into late-stage clinical trials by the end of July, continuing through the summer and into fall, the July 2 Reuters reports. The director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on June 26 posted key updates for week 25, of the COVID-19 epidemic, ending June 20. The percentage of US deaths attributed to flu, pneumonia, or COVID-19 decreased for the ninth consecutive week to 6.9%, from 9.5% a week earlier.…

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Editor's Note Transmission of COVID-19 during and after a college spring break trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, (March 14-19) by University of Texas at Austin students led to 64 cases, including 60 of 183 travelers, 1 of 13 household contacts, and 3 of 35 community contacts, according to the…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on June 22 called for a renewed commitment to value-based care based on Medicare claims data that provides an early snapshot of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Medicare population. Medicare patient data, from January 1 to May…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced June 24 that it has revised its position statement on preventing nosocomial COVID-19 infections as healthcare organizations resume regular care delivery. The Joint Commission supports the following positions: Continuing to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations for universal masking of staff, patients,…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced June 17 that it has resumed limited survey activities this month, and that scoring of items that are not compliant will not be the primary focus during the COVID-19 public health emergency. However, the Joint Commission says, there are several elements of performance (EPs)…

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Editor's Note Patients with underling conditions, such as heart disease, chronic lung disease, and diabetes were hospitalized six times as often and died 12 times as often from COVID-19 as those without underlying conditions, the Centers for Disease Control and Infection (CDC) reports. Severe outcomes increased with age—the percentages of…

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