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Notes from Today's (09/21/2021) Maine DHHS MD Call

Unfortunately, we remain in a significant surge of COVID cases. In the up of 600-700 cases per day. This continues to be a majority of unvaccinated individuals but there are a fair number of breakthrough cases. There are several outbreaks in LTC homes.
 
Update from Maine CDC: Carrie Rice
Federal CDC and CMS have updated guidance for SARS-COV-2 (COVID-19) which include recommendations for the following:
CDC Changes
  • Fully Vaccinated residents with an exposure
  • Testing Close Contacts
  • Recommendations for outbreak response
  • Updates to Optimize N95 Use
CMS Changes
  • Level of Community Transition Metric
  • Surveillance Testing Guidance
  • Outbreak Response
QSO-20-39 has NOT been updated and when you review this you may notice it does not directly align with these updates.
Maine CDC will NO LONGER be updating the table guidance for group A and group B facilities. There is no longer specific guidance laid out for group B homes. Group B homes should follow internal policies or adhere to the guidance set forth in the tools below. These tools and resource documents to reference can be found here: https://www.maine.gov/dhhs/mecdc/infectious-disease/hai/resources.shtml
Links to specific resources can be found here: For questions regarding COVID testing please consult Sally Weiss at Sally.Weiss@maine.gov. For access to Binax NOW testing please use this link to order Binax Rapid Ag tests from ME DHHS.
Assisted Living (Memory Care) units that are in a building with SNF/LTC units, should follow the SNF guidelines provided in today's update.

The supply of Monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapy, which has been noted as a strategy for decreasing the severity of COVID symptom and need for hospitalization or severe illness has been drastically depleted. Maine does not have adequate supply at this time but will continue to monitor, attempt to access and purchase supply as it becomes available.

Staff Contact: dwatford@mehca.org 
 

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