In a new study published in JAMA Network Open, researchers have created a dataset and data visualization dashboard to evaluate the effectiveness of state and territory-level policies enacted to reduce the severity of COVID-19's impact on older people served by home health care agencies and nursing homes.
The authors found many policies within states and territories did not correspond with reductions in community or nursing home-level COVID-19 burden (i.e. number of cases and mortality counts). This suggests that policy effectiveness may depend on implementation and compliance. The study also found that policies focused less on home health care agencies compared with nursing homes, despite both settings serving vulnerable older populations.
The Biden administration said Wednesday it’s working to strengthen federal testing guidance and the overall public health response should the bird flu outbreak in cows spread among humans.
State health labs have sent “around 25” human test samples to the CDC for reference testing amid the current dairy outbreak, according to officials. More than 100 workers are being monitored. Officials declined to answer questions from reporters about where in the country the monitored workers are, saying only that officials are “following the herd” of infected cows.
The analysis also found that spikes in the number of negative tweets coincided with announcements from governments and health care authorities about vaccination.
...genomic surveillance could do much more to reduce the toll of disease and death worldwide than just protect us from COVID-19. Writing inFrontiers in Science, an international collective of clinical and public health microbiologists from the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) calls for investment in technology, capacity, expertise, and collaboration to put genomic surveillance of pathogens at the forefront of future pandemic preparedness.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has launched a new online heat forecaster to help communities better prepare for summer's scorching temperatures.
The HeatRisk Forecast Tool is a joint effort between the CDC and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Weather Service to give Americans a week-long heads-up that broiling temperatures are headed their way. It is all close at hand at the HeatRisk Dashboard online—just enter a zip code for the latest forecast and updates.