COVID-19 Data Dispatch

Tag: infection control

  • COVID source callout: Lack of transparency from CDC committee

    Last week, I shared an update about the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC), a group of advisors to the CDC that has been working on updated guidelines for limiting infectious disease spread in healthcare settings. The committee has faced criticism for failing to incorporate lessons from COVID-19 into its guidance, as well as for a lack of transparency in its operations.

    The transparency issues continued this week, according to a press release by National Nurses United (NNU), a nurses union that’s been at the forefront of advocacy for better infection control guidelines. HICPAC only released a draft of its updated guidance on November 2, the day before it voted on the document. And it’s only giving the American public five days to review the document and provide feedback through public comments.

    “HICPAC’s draft is permissive and weak and seeks not just to maintain existing practice — which has been shown to be inadequately protective — but even rolls back the use of some important measures, such as airborne infection isolation rooms,” said NNU president Zenei Triunfo-Cortez in a statement.

    Despite calls to delay a vote on this document until hearing from healthcare workers and public health experts, HICPAC voted unanimously to finalize the guidance draft during its meeting this week. The vote indicates a lack of public transparency and a lack of consideration for relevant health expertise—which is troubling considering how influential this guidance is for setting standards in healthcare centers across the country.

    For more details about HICPAC and instructions on making public comments, see this CDC webpage.

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  • COVID source shout-out: Organizing for safety in healthcare settings

    A couple of months ago, I wrote about the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC), a group of experts that’s been working on updating CDC guidance for infectious disease safety measures in healthcare settings. The committee’s work has come under scrutiny for failing to actually improve safety with lessons learned from COVID-19.

    As outside health experts and advocates push HICPAC to consider improving mask standards, ventilation, and related guidance in healthcare settings, one group has led the advocacy effort: National Nurses United (NNU). This group is the largest nurses union in the U.S., with nearly 225,000 members and a lot of professional experience supporting better healthcare safety.

    NNU’s organizing efforts around the HICPAC guidance have included a number of letters and petitions to the CDC, organizing speakers at the public comment sections of HICPAC meetings, and pushing for greater transparency around how the committee makes decisions. The nurses’ organization recently released documents summarizing meetings of HICPAC committee members working on the new infection control guidance, which it received through public records requests. The documents show how this group “has prioritized employer costs and profits over robust protections for health care workers and patients,” NNU says.

    I’m writing about NNU’s efforts again now because HICPAC has another public meeting coming up this week, on November 2 and 3. If you’re interested in advocating for the committee to prioritize safety for workers and patients—not costs and profits—you can register to make a comment at the meeting. You can also sign onto a NNU petition asking the CDC to release the draft of HICPAC’s updated safety guidance.

    For more context about this issue, see the previous CDD post and this recent episode of the Death Panel podcast.

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  • COVID source callout: CDC infection control committee may roll back protections

    A little-known CDC advisory committee is suddenly in the public spotlight, as it considers recommending fewer safety measures to reduce infection in hospitals and other healthcare settings. Despite major pushback at a recent meeting, it’s unclear whether this committee will actually live up to its infection control duties.

    The Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee, or HICPAC, is a group of experts that advises the CDC on infectious disease safety measures in healthcare settings. It develops guidance that is rigorously followed across U.S. facilities, and the guidance is due for an update this year—for the first time since COVID-19 hit.

    In the last three years, healthcare and public health workers have learned a lot about the importance of masks and clean air for reducing respiratory disease risk. You might think that HICPAC would acknowledge this in its updated guidance, calling for hospitals to use high-quality masks and ventilation. Instead, however, HICPAC’s guidance disregards the last three years of airborne virus research, suggesting for example that N95s aren’t more protective than surgical masks and that masking is only needed when a disease is spreading very widely.

    These guidelines could have massive implications for the healthcare system. Many high-risk people are already hesitant to go to the doctor, in a time when mask requirements in these settings have largely been lifted. COVID-19 is spreading widely in these settings, limited data suggest. The new guidelines, if adopted, would extend the current COVID-19 “normal” to many other diseases, from seasonal flu to new viruses that may emerge.

    Naturally, a coalition of better-informed individuals and organizations (healthcare workers, scientists, patients, etc.) are pushing back against HICPAC. At a public meeting this past Tuesday, many attendees spoke against the guidance change, citing health research as well as their own experiences in the last three years. The committee failed to meaningfully acknowledge this criticism; in fact, it cut off the public comment period after just 40 minutes, leaving many attendees unable to share their feedback.

    Transparency concerns about HICPAC—which doesn’t usually share public updates or livestream its meetings—add to concerns about the committee’s guidance decisions. But the pressure is on for HICPAC to respond to its critics, improve its new guidance, and live up to its title.

    Further reading and how to get involved:

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