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CMS issues rule requiring healthcare staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19


photo credit Fast Facts


According to a report from World Health Organization and the


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020 saw the larg- est increase in unvaccinated children for measles in 20 years


22 million Source: xxx


infants missed their first dose of measles vaccine in 2020, 3 million more than in 2019.


XXX Text here 26 countries


had major measles outbreaks and accounted for 84% of all reported cases in 2020.


31.7 million


deaths globally were pre- vented during 2000–2020 due to measles vaccines.


43,700


was the number of measles cases in the U.S. in 2020.


81


countries had been verified by independent regional


commissions as having sustained measles elimination by the end of 2020, but no new countries have achieved elimination in 2021.


72% to 84%


was the increase in global measles vaccinations during 2000–2010, the rate peaked at 86% in 2019, but declined to 84% in 2020 dur- ing the COVID-19 pandemic.


Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - https://www.cdc.gov/ mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7045a1.htm?


The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued an emergency regulation requiring COVID-19 vacci- nation of staff members at healthcare facilities. The rule applies to facilities that participate in the Medicare and Med- icaid programs.


“Ensuring patient safety and pro- tection from COVID-19 has been the focus of our efforts in combatting the pandemic and the constantly evolving challenges we’re seeing,” said CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure. “Today’s action addresses the risk of unvaccinated healthcare staff to patient safety and provides stability and unifor- mity across the nation’s healthcare sys- tem to strengthen the health of people and the providers who care for them.” The prevalence of COVID-19, in particular the Delta variant, within healthcare settings increases the risk of unvaccinated staff contracting the virus and transmitting the virus to patients, CMS said. In addition, patients’ safety and access to care also suffers when healthcare staff cannot work because they are ill or because of exposure to COVID-19, the agency said. These requirements will apply to approximately 76,000 providers and cover over 17 million healthcare workers across the country, CMS said. Facilities must establish a policy en- suring all eligible staff have received the first dose of a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine or a one-dose COVID-19 vaccine prior to providing any care, treatment, or other services by December 5, 2021. By January 4, 2022, staff members must be fully vaccinated. The regulation also provides for exemptions based on rec- ognized medical conditions or religious beliefs, observances, or practices. Facili- ties must develop a similar process or plan for permitting exemptions in align- ment with federal law.


CMS said it will ensure compliance with these requirements through established survey and enforcement processes. If a provider or supplier does not meet the requirements, it will be cited by a surveyor as being non- compliant and have an opportunity to return to compliance before additional actions occur.


Breastfeeding could prevent cog- nitive decline


UCLA Health researchers found that women older than the age of 50 who had breastfed their babies


6 DECEMBER 2021 MLO-ONLINE.COM


performed better on cognitive tests compared to women who had never breastfed. The findings, published in Evolution, Medicine and Public Health, suggest that breastfeeding may have a positive impact on postmenopausal women’s cognitive performance and could have long-term benefits for the mother’s brain. When cognition becomes impaired after the age of 50, it can be a strong predictor of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), the leading form of dementia and cause of disability among the elderly — with women comprising nearly two-thirds of Americans living with the disease. Many studies also show that phases


of a woman’s reproductive life-histo- ry, such as menstruation, pregnancy, breastfeeding and menopause can be linked to a higher or lower risk for developing various health conditions like depression or breast cancer, yet few studies have examined breast- feeding and its impact on women’s long-term cognition. “What we do know is that there is


a positive correlation between breast- feeding and a lower risk of other dis- eases such as type-2 diabetes and heart disease, and that these conditions are strongly connected to a higher risk for AD,” said Helen Lavretsky, MD, the se- nior author of the study and Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. The researchers analyzed data col- lected from women participating in two cross-sectional randomized con- trolled 12-week clinical trials at UCLA Health: 115 women chose to partici- pate, with 64 identified as depressed and 51 non-depressed. All participants answered a survey and completed a comprehensive battery of psychologi- cal tests measuring learning, delayed recall, executive functioning and pro- cessing speed. Importantly, none of the participants had been diagnosed with dementia, or other psychiatric diagnoses, such as bipolar disorder, alcohol or drug dependence, neurological disorders or had other disabilities. Key findings from the researchers’


analysis of the data collected from questionnaires on the women’s repro- ductive history revealed that about 65% of non-depressed women reported hav- ing breastfed, compared to 44% of the depressed women. All non-depressed participants reported at least one com- pleted pregnancy compared to 57.8% of the depressed participants.


Photo Courtesy of CDC


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