Long-term care providers who’ve been flummoxed about recent infection control guidance coming from federal health agencies are not alone. During a U.S. Senate committee hearing on Tuesday, lawmakers lambasted the country’s leading health officials for “conflicting and confusing” pandemic communications.
One speaker, Sen. Richard Burr, (R-NC) of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, asked officials what they would do to restore confidence with the American people and show that there is a strategy for testing, treatments, and for fixing their communication problems.
He and other senators noted delays in promised testing supplies, conflicting mask and booster messaging and uncertainty about whether testing was needed after isolation and quarantine, among many other issues. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been the focus of many of these complaints.
Officials pushed back. The acting head of the Food and Drug Administration agreed that her agency had experienced challenges during the pandemic but that the focus should be on handling surging omicron variant cases, according to a report by Reuters.
“I think it’s hard to process what’s actually happening right now, which is most people are going to get COVID,” Janet Woodcock told the Senate committee, according to the news outlet. “And what we need to do is make sure the hospitals can still function, transportation, other essential services are not disrupted while this happens. I think after that will be a good time to reassess how we’re approaching this pandemic.”
Public guidance not intended for nursing homes
The bipartisan grilling comes after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the CDC reached out last week to nursing home stakeholders in an attempt to clear up the most recent questions about visitation, boosters and new recommendations for shortened isolation and quarantine times.
Regarding isolation and quarantine, speakers on the call acknowledged potential misunderstandings about the difference between guidance for the general public and for healthcare workers, and how the entirely separate recommendations for each group might affect facility residents and visitors. The CDC’s Karen Jacobs-Slifka, M.D., referred nursing home decision-makers to guidance released on Dec. 23 on the CDC’s website that addresses work restriction for healthcare personnel with SARS-CoV-2 infection or with exposures to infection.
“I want to make it really clear that that guidance for the general public is not intended for the nursing home population, it is not intended for nursing home residents, nor is it intended for individuals working in nursing homes,” she said at the time.
And regarding visitors, she said: “We do not want individuals who are visiting nursing homes to apply this guidance and then go see a family member who might be vulnerable.”
