Friday Stats and More

Here are the week by week COVID-19 case statistics for this month from the Centers for Disease Control:

3-6-203-13-203-20-203-27-20
Travel36138290712
Person to Person181293101326
Cause under invest.1101362984283,318
Total Cases164162910,44285,356
Total Deaths1501246
Deaths over cases1.44%1.46%

Quite a spike. In the FEHBlog’s view, it will be interesting to see whether there is any leveling off in the case count increase.

The CDC’s latest Fluline reports “that [according to CDC estimates] so far this season there have been at least 39 million flu illnesses, 400,000 hospitalizations and 24,000 deaths from flu.” That represents a deaths over cases percentage of .06%.

With regard to COVID related guidance from that is relevant to FEHBP carriers and others

  • The Department of Health and Human Services Office for Human Rights has gathered together all of its COVID-19 emergency guidance on the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules in one website.
  • The Department of Labor and the IRS have issued additional guidance on the Families First Coronavirus Response Act’s paid sick leave mandate and expanded FMLA leave.
  • The National Committee for Quality Assurance has assembled its COVID-19 emergency guidance here.

As previously mentioned the Office of Personnel Management has taken the same consolidated approach with its online COVID-19 emergency guidance which generally is directed at federal agencies.