From Capitol Hill, the Senate approved a motion to proceed to a vote on the Postal Reform Act of 2022 (HR 3076) by a voice vote. This vote suggests to the FEHBlog that the Senate will approve the bill this week.
Roll Call discusses the status of the Consolidated Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2022. Congress has a week and half to finish cobbling together this law before it needs a fourth continuing resolution.
From the Omicron vaccine front, the American Hospital Association tells us
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today released a study examining the effectiveness of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at preventing emergency department and urgent care visits by children aged 5-11 and 12-17. Among children aged 5-11, effectiveness 14-67 days after dose 2 (the longest interval in this age group) was 46%, significantly lower than overall estimates for adolescents aged 12-17. However, most encounters among children aged 5-11 occurred during omicron predominance, when the vaccine’s effectiveness also significantly declined for adolescents, suggesting that the lower effectiveness for children aged 5-11 was likely driven by the predominant variant rather than differences in effectiveness across age groups, the authors said. During omicron predominance, there was no evidence 2 doses protected adolescents after 150 days; however, a booster dose restored effectiveness to 81% in this age group, the authors said.
Another study released today by the CDC looks at reactions to the Pfizer booster in adolescents aged 12-17, which were generally mild to moderate and transient. Myocarditis was less frequently reported after a booster dose than a second primary dose, the authors said.
From the Omicron masking and testing front —
- Govexec reports
Federal agencies can relax their mask and testing protocols in the wake of new public health guidance.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s released on Friday a “new framework” that “moves beyond just looking at cases and test positivity to evaluate factors that reflect the severity of disease, including hospitalizations and hospital capacity, and helps to determine whether the level of COVID-19 and severe disease are low, medium, or high in a community,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the agency’s director, said on a call with reporters. Guidance from the Biden administration’s Safer Federal Workforce Task Force on Monday reflects this new framework.
“This document provides federal agencies with initial implementation guidance they should follow in utilizing the CDC’s COVID-19 Community Levels to determine the appropriate mask-wearing and screening testing requirements for each federal facility at a given time,” said the guidance.
- The AP informs us
Wild demand swings have been a subplot in the pandemic, from vaccines to hand sanitizer, along with tests. On the first day of the White House test giveaway in January, COVIDtests.gov received over 45 million orders. Now officials say fewer than 100,000 orders a day are coming in for the packages of four free rapid tests per household, delivered by the U.S. Postal Service.
It would be a good idea for the federal government to tell health plans to refer their members to the federal site if they are interested in receiving test kits.
To sum it up from the Omicron front, check out the lead article from the NIH Director’s blog titled “How Covid immunity holds up over time.”
From the tidbits department —
- The CDC discusses the unholy connection between diabetes and chronic kidney disease.
- Fierce Healthcare discusses telehealth provider Amwell’s fourth quarter results.
- Beckers Payer Issues notes
UnitedHealth Group is beginning to act on its November promise to shore up its sustainability efforts by halting its mailing paper of prior authorization and clinical decisions to providers, according to a Feb. 25 post on the California Medical Association website.
The first move — a nationwide shift to digital clinical decision letters — is effective March 4 for most UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage and commercial plan members. Instead of receiving a mail appeal decision, providers can view the decisions digitally immediately after they are made.
- Federal News Network reports
President Joe Biden is calling for more federal employees to return to the office, saying “significant progress” fighting the COVID-19 pandemic has made it safer to do so.
Ahead of his State of the Union address, Biden issued a letter Tuesday thanking the federal workforce for its “tireless work this past year” confronting the pandemic and leading economic recovery efforts.
A return to the office, however, doesn’t necessarily mean a return to the pre-pandemic status quo.
Biden urged agencies to “build on the innovations and technologies that we put to work serving the American people throughout the pandemic, making our government more efficient, resilient, and effective.”
Good luck, OPM.