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10.15.20

COVID-19 Update | October 15, 2020

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COVID-19 Update

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  • COVID-19
  • Disease Management

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coronavirus COVID-19

Coronavirus Disease 2019

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October 15, 2020

This report from the Missouri Hospital Association is designed to help you stay abreast of recent developments related to COVID-19.

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Government Action
Noteworthy
PPE & Supply
Rural Resources
Testing, Reporting & Treatment
Vaccine Updates

COVID-19 REPRODUCTIVE RATE (Re) BY REGION AS OF OCTOBER 13, 2020

KC

STL

NE

NW

Central

SE

SW

Red Down Arrow1.13

Red Down Arrow1.03

N/A

Red Down Arrow1.26

Red Down Arrow1.16

Red Down Arrow 1.15

Red Down Arrow 1.10

The effective reproductive rate, represents the effective transmission rate for COVID-19. Ideally, the Re should be less than 1. Click the Re rate above or visit our website to view the weekly regional dashboards and learn more.

Source: Washington University Institute for Public Health

Government Action


CMS Expands List Of Covered Telehealth Services

Staff Contact: Andrew Wheeler

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services expanded the list of telehealth services that Medicare fee-for-service will pay for during the Public Health Emergency. The list now includes 249 CPT codes that are payable when furnished through telehealth.

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Noteworthy


Missouri Leads Country In Telehealth Utilization Among Medicaid Adults

Staff Contact: Brian Kinkade

A report from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services shows Medicaid telehealth services increased 2,600% nationwide during the second quarter of 2020 over the same period in the previous year. Notably, Missouri led the country in the rate of telehealth service delivery for Medicaid participants age 19 to 64, with 520 services per 1,000 beneficiaries. The rate of telehealth services for children and elders in Missouri was on par with other states. The MO HealthNet Division was particularly aggressive in expanding options for telehealth care delivery in the early days of the pandemic, including services delivered telephonically. Telephonic telehealth has reportedly been particularly effective in maintaining behavioral health treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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PPE & Supply


PPE Optimization Fact Sheet Available

Staff Contact: Stacie Hollis

MHA hosted a webinar on Oct. 14 on the topic of security considerations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Presenters shared how they implement security strategies and practices for optimizing personal protective equipment. MHA published a fact sheet that provides more information on these strategies and practices, as well as how other hospitals are working to optimize PPE.

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Rural Resources


Majority Of Rural Missouri Counties In COVID-19 Red Zones

Staff Contact: Dana Dahl

An article distributed by the Daily Yonder established that 61% of rural counties throughout the nation are on the COVID-19 red-zone list, setting a new record of infections in rural America. Missouri added 12 counties to the red-zone list last week, putting 74 of 81 of its rural counties (88%) on the red-zone list.
The data analyzed is from Oct. 4-10, and includes an interactive map of all U.S. counties’ case rates. Red-zone counties have a one-week infection rate of 100 or more new cases per 100,000 population.

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Rural Healthcare Surge Readiness Web Portal Available

Staff Contact: Dana Dahl

As a reminder, the Rural Health Information Hub’s Rural Surge Readiness Web Portal is a collection of critical resources for rural health care systems preparing for and responding to a COVID-19 surge. The web portal continues to be updated as new resources are available and existing resources are modified.

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Testing, Reporting & Treatment


NIH Launches Effort To ID Promising COVID-19 Treatments For Clinical Trials

Staff Contact: Terrie Bauer

The National Institutes of Health announced a study designed to identify promising COVID-19 therapies and investigational drugs that merit larger clinical trials. The ACTIV-5 Big Effect Trial, which will enroll adult volunteers hospitalized with COVID-19 at as many as 40 U.S sites, will be administered by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in collaboration with NIH’s public-private Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Innovations and Vaccines partnership. NIH said the phase 2 adaptive, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial will compare different investigational therapies to a common control arm to determine which experimental treatments have relatively large effects, with approximately 100 hospitalized volunteers assigned to each study arm.

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FDA Authorizes COVID-19 Antibody Test’s Emergency Use

Staff Contact: Terrie Bauer

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for Abbott Laboratories’ AdviseDx SARS-CoV-2 IgM (Immunoglobulin M) lab-based serology test. Abbott said the test, which is used on its ARCHITECT and Alinity platforms, has demonstrated high reliability in its research and external virology laboratory studies, with 99.56% specificity and 95% sensitivity for patients tested 15 days after symptom onset.

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HHS, DOD Award $481 Million For Point-Of-Care Test, Announce Vaccine Manufacturer Partnership

Staff Contact: Terrie Bauer

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense awarded $481 million to Cue Health, Inc. to expand production of a point-of-care COVID-19 molecular test with capabilities to produce results in 20 minutes. Cue said the highly sensitive test uses a nasal swab sample to detect RNA of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. HHS said the partnership allows Cue to increase production to 100,000 test kits per day by March 2021.

HHS and DOD announced a separate $31 million agreement with Cytiva to expand the company’s capacity to produce items essential to the production of COVID-19 vaccines, such as liquid and dry powder cell culture media, cell culture buffers, mixer bags and bioreactors.

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Vaccine Updates


Johnson & Johnson Pauses COVID-19 Vaccine Clinical Trials

Staff Contact: Terrie Bauer

Drug-maker Johnson & Johnson announced the pause of its large-scale, pivotal, multicountry phase 3 trial for its JNJ-78436735 COVID-19 vaccine candidate. The pause is the result of an unexplained illness in a study volunteer participant. Johnson & Johnson announced the start of its phase 3 trial for the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies-developed vaccine on Sept. 23.

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CDC Adds Vaccine-Specific Content To Website

Staff Contact: Terrie Bauer

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added vaccine information to its COVID-19 web page. The new content includes what health care providers should know about U.S. vaccination plans, how the CDC makes vaccination recommendations and answers to FAQs. The CDC said these resources are intended to explain how future vaccines will be monitored for safety.

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Fight Flu: Get Vaccinated Against Flu This Season.
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