COVID-19 Update September 29, 2022

This week, Arizona COVID-19 levels remain the same, HHS pledges to offer monoclonal antibody treatments to the uninsured and the CDC no longer recommends universal masking in healthcare settings.

There were 3,402 new cases of COVID-19 reported in Arizona over the past week and 44 deaths related to the coronavirus. This amounts to roughly no change from the previous week. This information comes courtesy of the Arizona Department of Health Services COVID-19 data dashboard.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will purchase 60,000 COVID-19 monoclonal antibody treatment doses for treatment of the uninsured and underinsured at no cost to providers or patients. According to Modern Healthcare, HHS estimates that these supplies should last until next September.

From the HHS press release:

Through this new initiative, which is effective immediately, healthcare providers who use a commercially procured dose of bebtelovimab to treat an uninsured or underinsured patient may be eligible to have the dose replaced for free by HHS. Healthcare providers can use their own established methods for determining uninsured or underinsured status, such as eligibility criteria for existing programs for which a patient may already be eligible.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) no longer recommends universal masking in healthcare settings, unless the facilities are in regions with high community transmission. According to the Hill, the advice is not mandatory, and facilities may “choose not to require” providers, patients or visitors to mask.

The CDC also announced 5-year awards to five state public health departments that would establish the Pathogen Genomics Centers of Excellence (PGCoE) network, which is intended to support innovation and technical capacity for pathogen genomics and molecular epidemiology. The five recipients of the funding include the Georgia Department of Public Health, the Minnesota Department of Health, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the Virginia Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services, and the Washington State Department of Health.