BriggsNetNews

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDP
Clinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare

CMS has posted the nursing home data for the week ending July 17, 2022.

Comparing the July 10^th data to the previous July 3^rd data shows these changes:

• Resident primary vaccination completion rate increased 0.1% from the previous week
• Residents with booster doses increased 0.2% (same as previous 2 weeks)
• Staff primary vaccination completion rate remained the same (same as previous 4 weeks)
• Staff with booster doses increased 0.1%
• An additional 11,324 resident cases were confirmed/reported this week
• An additional 89 resident deaths were reported this week
• An additional 14,766 staff cases were confirmed/reported this week
• An additional 17 staff deaths were reported this week

Please continue your efforts to educate staff, residents and families about the life-saving benefits of vaccination as well as the importance of getting the booster. Lives depend on both.

Cases continue to rise again. BA.4 and BA.5 together are the dominant strains at this time. BA.5 is more highly contagious than previous strains.

Be sure to review your facility’s vaccination rates on the list of every nursing home with recent resident and staff vaccination rates and other pertinent data  as this data will be used for completing the COVID-19 Matrix during survey. State surveyors look at this data in preparation for your survey. You’ll also need to know your current rate (as reported to NHSN) and provide it to the survey team entering your facility. This data is current as of the week ending July 10, 2022.

The CDC COVID Data Tracker shows these current community transmission levels as of July 24, 2022:

The NHSN Nursing Home Covid-19 Data Dashboard provides this data as of July 25, 2022, at 5:30am ET:

Resident and staff cases as well as resident and staff deaths are going up. Look at the data! Resident and staff vaccinations should be going up as well but they’re limping along with very little gain.

Take a look at the following charts from CDC:

These charts are from Thursday’s COCA Call that addressed the just-approved Novavax vaccine and are found here.  Check out where the elder population is, in terms of fully vaccinated – they can do better with the 1^st & 2^nd boosters. This population is doing better than the 18-29 age group – our workforce. The 50-64 age group also has room for improvement – also our workforce.

The Novavax COCA Call recording will be available here. It was a good one – well worth listening to. Novavax is the 4^th COVID-19 vaccine available to U.S. citizens.