Latest CMS, CDC and NHSN Nursing Home COVID-19 Data

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

CMS has posted COVID-19 Nursing Home data for the week ending February 27, 2022.

Comparing the February 27^th data to the February 20^th data shows these differences:

Resident vaccination rate rose 0.1% from the previous week
Residents with booster doses (new the week of 2/6) increased by 1.2% this past week
Staff vaccination rate increased 0.5% this week
Staff with booster doses (new the week of 2/6) increased by 1.6% this past week
An additional 6,836 resident cases were confirmed/reported this week (note that there are now over 1 million resident cases in the U.S.)
An additional 348 resident deaths were confirmed/reported this week

An additional 5,757 staff cases were confirmed/reported this week
An additional 18 staff deaths were confirmed/reported again this week

On Sunday, March 13^th, we mark the 2^nd anniversary of the declaration of Public Health Emergency (PHE) as well the lockdown of all nursing homes in the U.S. It certainly is a day I’ll never forget, and I doubt that our readers won’t either. If you want to revisit that CMS directive as we go into the 3^rd year of the pandemic & PHE, click here.

As a nation as well as healthcare settings, we’ve come a long ways and things appear to be going much better but DON’T let your guard down! We’ve seen this trajectory before, and we’ve seen it reverse course into a surge. Please get vaccinated and boosted. Educate and encourage your family and friends to do the same. Keep that mask handy in case it’s needed again. Practice good personal and hand hygiene. Go to the doctor when you need to – keep up with your regular vaccinations, medications and healthcare needs. Don’t go to work if you don’t feel well. We’ve learned a lot in these 2+ years. Take care of yourself as well as others.

Be sure to review the list of every nursing home with recent resident and staff vaccination rates and other pertinent data – especially your facility’s staff vaccination rates as this data will be used for completing the COVID-19 Matrix during survey. State surveyors look at this data prior to entering your facility for survey (during their preparation). This data is current as of the week ending February 27, 2022.

The CDC COVID Data Tracker shows current community transmission levels:

Here’s the U.S. COVID-19 Community Levels by County Map date as posted March 10, 2022:

This chart explains, via color-coding, what the community levels mean:

Remember that healthcare facilities use the community transmission levels data and NOT the community levels data for testing and other IPC requirements/recommendations.