Q:
Now that the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) has ended, what Infection Control precautions are facilities required to follow?
A:
The recommendations in the CDC Guidance, Interim Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations for Healthcare Personnel During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic, continue to apply after the end of the PHE. The guidelines were updated on May 8, 2023 to include updated recommendations for universal source control and admission testing in nursing homes and an Appendix was added to assist facilities with how and when to implement broader use of source control, including examples of potential metrics.
- With the end of the federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) on May 11, 2023, CDC will no longer receive data needed to publish Community Transmission levels for SARS-CoV-2. As described in CDC’s Core IPC Practices, source control remains an important intervention during periods of higher respiratory virus transmission. Without the Community Transmission metric, healthcare facilities should identify local metrics that could reflect increasing community respiratory viral activity to determine when broader use of source control in the facility might be warranted. The updates to the guidance includes a section with considerations for implementing broader use of masks.
- Admission COVID testing is at the facility’s discretion. Anyone with even mild symptoms of COVID-19, regardless of vaccination status, should receive a viral test for SARS-CoV-2 as soon as possible and asymptomatic patients with close contact with someone with SARS-CoV-2 infection should have a series of three viral tests for SARS-CoV-2 infection
Shelly Maffia, MSN, MBA, RN, LNHA, QCP, CHC, CLNC, CPC
Director of Regulatory Services
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