Editor's Note According to a March 4 notice filed by NYC Test & Trace Corps, New York City's (NYC’s) initiative for COVID-19 testing and contact tracing, the city is ending universal contact tracing by the end of April, Becker’s Hospital Review March 10 reported. This means that NYC Health +…

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Editor's Note Based on data submitted by Janssen Biotech Inc., a pharmaceutical company wholly owned by Johnson & Johnson, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized on March 7 the extension of the shelf life for refrigerated Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines, the American Hospital Association March 14 reported. The…

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Editor's Note ECRI, on March 14, issued its annual list of Patient Safety Concerns, which is dominated this year by staffing shortages and healthcare workers’ mental health that have been made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the past, the top concerns were typically associated with clinical issues caused by…

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Editor's Note The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) on March 8 announced the publication of a new report outlining actions needed to successfully battle future pandemics while fighting the rise in healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). Some recommendations in the 66-page report, titled “Between a Rock and Hard…

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Editor's Note This study from Norway, a country with a 90% primary vaccination rate, finds that a secondary attack rate of COVID-19 was higher when the individual's primary case was the Omicron variant. All Norwegian residents were tracked from December 1, 2021, to January 8, 2022, the period when Omicron…

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Editor's Note The biggest obstacle to achieving 100% vaccination rate in the US is no longer whether vaccines will be manufactured fast enough, or if there will be enough for the country’s population, Lisa Doggett, senior medical director at HGS AxisPoint Health, told Health Leaders March 8. “Rather, it's concerns…

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Editor's Note This study led by the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, finds substantial changes in the healthcare workforce during years 2020 and 2021 of the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the findings: Healthcare employment levels fell from 22.2 million in 2019 to 21.1 million in 2020 (a 5.2% decline), and then…

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Editor's Note According to a February 28 Politico article, titled “Want a COVID-19 vaccine exemption? It can be as easy as copy and paste,” hospital executives are starting to doubt the integrity of religious exemption requests, Becker’s Hospital Review reports. According to the Politico article, submitting a religious exemption is…

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Editor's Note This study by researchers at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School finds that treatment for COVID-19 should be based on clinical judgment and not just testing. Between April and October 2020, the researchers looked at four groups: 40 patients who were RT-PCR confirmed positive 20 patients who repeatedly tested…

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Editor's Note As of February 14, The Joint Commission began surveying to the COVID-19 vaccination requirements in the 24 states that were not previously subject to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) “Omnibus COVID-19 Health Care Staff Vaccination” interim final rule. Healthcare organizations in these 24 states must…

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