On Feb. 19, the COVID-19 Health Equity Response Unit at the Mississippi State Department of Health held a virtual town hall for the Vietnamese community.

While Mississippi voters overwhelmingly endorsed a specific medical marijuana legalization plan in November, the state might ultimately create a program that looks drastically different.

The American Hospital Association had a negative reaction to study findings showing that regulation of hospital prices would be the most effective way to reduce prices paid by commercial insurers.

The FBI has issued recommendations to help prevent and respond to Telephony Denial of Service (TDoS) attacks, which can make 911 call centers unavailable to users and undermine public trust in emergency services.

A Federal Communications Commission advisory panel recently recommended best practices for voice service providers, hospitals, and federal and state governments to prevent robocalls from disrupting communications in hospitals. John Riggi, AHA’s senior advisor for cybersecurity and risk, represented the field and AHA on the FCC’s Hospital Robocall Protection Group.

In other cybersecurity news, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center has released its latest monthly report on recent cybersecurity vulnerabilities of interest to the health sector. The report identifies Microsoft, Adobe, Intel, SAP, Cisco, and Apple vulnerabilities and associated patches.

Advancing health equity within communities of color disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 — and getting the facts straight about reasons for hesitancy over receiving vaccines — are priority issues for government policy influencers and health care organization leaders. In a new blog post, Joy Lewis, AHA senior vice president of health equity strategies and executive director of the AHA’s Institute for Diversity and Health Equity, shares how hospitals are approaching these issues and what they are doing to ensure inclusivity during the current vaccine rollout.

The AHA recently launched a new webpage dedicated to disseminating accessible information focused on addressing the equity issues in COVID-19 testing, treatment and vaccine administration efforts. The page hosts a wealth of tools and content that link back to resources developed by our strategic partners and other organizations to equip hospitals and health systems with culturally appropriate ways to engage patient populations and communities who are disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

“Hospital and health system leaders and caregivers must work hard to build trust within structurally marginalized communities and engage in strategies that will be effective to promote vaccine confidence, improve communication and enhance access,” said Joy Lewis, AHA senior vice president of health equity. “Our new webpage is part of AHA’s participation in a broad national push to share resources that support decision-making that can protect those populations disproportionately suffering from COVID-19. To view the webpage, click here.

Safety monitoring during the first month of the COVID-19 national vaccination program shows “reassuring safety profiles” for the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Emergency use authorizations for the vaccines require providers to report adverse events to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. About 91% of VAERS reports between Dec. 14, 2020, and Jan. 13, 2021, were for non-serious events and involved local and systemic symptoms, the authors said. Reported cases of anaphylaxis, a life-threatening but treatable allergic reaction, totaled 4.5 per million doses administered, comparable with those reported for other vaccines, they said. The 113 deaths reported to VAERS over the period were consistent with expected all-cause mortality and did not suggest a causal relationship with vaccination, the authors said.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services extended until March 22 its guidance limiting the hospital survey process during the COVID-19 public health emergency. Among other provisions, the guidance limits onsite surveys to immediate jeopardy complaint allegations. 

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has identified Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System codes for billing Medicare for the combination monoclonal antibodies bamlanivimab and etesevimab, made by Eli Lilly and Co. The Food and Drug Administration this month authorized administering the monoclonal antibodies together to treat patients 12 and older with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 who are at high risk for progressing to severe disease but not hospitalized or on oxygen therapy. The emergency use authorization also authorizes the treatment for patients 65 or older with certain chronic medical conditions.

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTech SE (Nasdaq: BNTX) announced the submission of new data to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) demonstrating the stability of their COVID-19 vaccine when stored at -25°C to -15°C (-13°F to 5°F), temperatures more commonly found in pharmaceutical freezers and refrigerators. The data have been submitted to the FDA to support a proposed update to the U.S. Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) Prescribing Information, which would allow for vaccine vials to be stored at these temperatures for a total of two weeks as an alternative or complement to storage in an ultra-low temperature freezer.

3M recently released guidance to help customers identify fraudulent surgical respirators in response to growing reports of fraud related to three of its respirator models. The company strongly recommends purchasing 3M respirators only through authorized distributors to assure authentic product. Customers with specific questions or wishing to authenticate 3M respiratory protection products should contact the company’s anti-fraud hotline at 1-800-426-8688 or visit the 3M website for more information.