4/29/22 – Weekly Covid-19 Update

CHAP’s COVID-19 Weekly Update
In this “one-stop-shop” update, CHAP will provide a roundup of important COVID-19 information from various federal sources.

All health care providers should be monitoring COVID-19 incidence rates in their state/county on an ongoing basis.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC provides weekly data about case rates, deaths, testing, and vaccine administration on their COVID tracker webpage.

 

CDC Data

 

CDC Data and other Federal Updates

COVID-19 Was the Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (CDC, 4/22/22)
Two reports released on 4/22/22 use CDC’s National Vital Statistics System to look at death rates in the United States and find that differences in death rates still remain between certain racial and ethnic minority groups.  The first study found that the overall age-adjusted death rate increased by almost 1% in 2021 from 2020. Overall death rates were highest among non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaskan Native and non-Hispanic Black or African American people. For the second year, COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer.  The second report shows that from 2020 to 2021, differences in COVID-19 death rates decreased among most racial and ethnic groups.

 

FACT SHEET: Biden Administration Increases Access to COVID-⁠19 Treatments and Boosts Patient and Provider Awareness (White House, 4/26/22)
There are now more tools than ever before to protect people from the virus, including highly effective treatments. Over the past 15 months, the Administration has pulled levers across the federal government and deployed resources Congress provided to expedite the development, production, and procurement of COVID-19 treatments. As a result, the U.S. now has several treatments available that can help keep people out of the hospital and save lives.

 

White House pushes to increase use of Pfizer’s Covid treatment Paxlovid (White House, 4/26/22)
The White House is making a push for more Covid patients to get treated with Pfizer’s Paxlovid as hundreds of people in the U.S. continue to die from the coronavirus every day.  Officials said that because the drug has been underused in the fight against the pandemic, the federal government will double the number of locations where Paxlovid is available.  The White House said it expects that as many as 10,000 of the sites could start carrying the drug as soon as this week.