The United States is seeing a 16% increase in daily new cases over the previous week and more than 40 states have an increase in daily new cases over the previous two weeks as well as 25 states seeing an increase in hospitalizations, according to NNU. The rise in cases is not surprising due to “the rapid reopening of many states and the removal of public health measures, including the CDC’s May 13, 2021, guidance update that told vaccinated individuals they no longer needed to wear masks, observe physical distancing, avoid crowds, or get tested or isolate after an exposure, within only a few exceptions,” the letter states.

HFAP, a brand of the Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC), issued its annual benchmarking report on stroke programs recently, which demonstrated COVID-19’s impact on these programs. HFAP collected data to help healthcare professionals expand their knowledge of the risks, triggers, and variations of stroke, with findings that took a year of pandemic challenges into account.

A recent McKinsey & Company report, for example, found that during the pandemic, rural communities with diverse populations experienced 1.7 times more COVID-19 deaths per capita than other rural communities around the country. The study also found that in rural counties where the population is comprised of at least 33% of racial or ethnic minority groups, deaths from COVID were 1.5 times higher than in other communities.

Be sure your facility electronic Statement of Conditions™ (eSOC) and Basic Building Information (eBBI) are up to date with accurate business occupancy information. Expect life safety (LS) surveyors to start inspecting many of your off-campus sites now that The Joint Commission (TJC) has a new LS section on business occupancies.

Starting with LS.01.05.10, the five new standards, with a total of 28 elements of performance (EP), were announced earlier this year and came into effect on July 1. However, TJC officials have been warning for years, including at last fall’s national American Society for Health Care Engineering (ASHE) conference, that it was going to be adding days to the LS survey so surveyors could do inspections at business occupancies with healthcare components.

We’ve all heard the stories: A patient comes down with COVID-19 and recovers, but not completely. Lingering symptoms plague them long after the virus itself is gone. It’s believed that this condition, known as long-haul COVID-19, is becoming a serious problem affecting millions of Americans, and the medical community is still trying to gain insight into the how and why. The CDC recently announced that it is working on guidelines for treating COVID-19 long-haulers who develop chronic illness.