- VA: Staff Sergeant Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program Funding Opportunity
- Telehealth Study Recruiting Veterans Now
- USDA Delivers Immediate Relief to Farmers, Ranchers and Rural Communities Impacted by Recent Disasters
- Submit Nominations for Partnership for Quality Measurement (PQM) Committees
- Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation of the Medicare Program (Executive Order 14192) - Request for Information
- Dr. Mehmet Oz Shares Vision for CMS
- CMS Refocuses on its Core Mission and Preserving the State-Federal Medicaid Partnership
- Social Factors Help Explain Worse Cardiovascular Health among Adults in Rural Vs. Urban Communities
- Reducing Barriers to Participation in Population-Based Total Cost of Care (PB-TCOC) Models and Supporting Primary and Specialty Care Transformation: Request for Input
- Secretary Kennedy Renews Public Health Emergency Declaration to Address National Opioid Crisis
- Secretary Kennedy Renews Public Health Emergency Declaration to Address National Opioid Crisis
- 2025 Marketplace Integrity and Affordability Proposed Rule
- Rural America Faces Growing Shortage of Eye Surgeons
- Comments Requested on Mobile Crisis Team Services: An Implementation Toolkit Draft
- NRHA Continues Partnership to Advance Rural Oral Health
Biden $1.9 Trillion COVID-19 Relief Package Update
On January 15, 2021, then President-Elect Biden announced his COVID-19 and stimulus plan, the American Rescue Plan, hoping Congress will take up and pass the legislation. Biden specifically included Community Health Centers, wanting to increase partnerships with health centers and boost their federal funding. In it, Biden calls to “launch a new partnership with Federally Qualified Health Centers nationwide.” Other elements of the plan include:
- Mount a $20 billion national vaccination program in partnership with states, localities, and Tribes. This will include launching community vaccination centers nationwide and deploying mobile vaccination units to hard-to-reach areas. Also, ensure that everyone receives the vaccine for free, regardless of their immigration status.
- Invests $50 billion in a massive expansion of testing, including for purchasing rapid tests, expanding lab capacity, and helping schools and local governments implement regular testing protocols.
- Funding 100,000 public health workers to perform vaccine outreach and contact tracing in the short term, and eventually to transition into community health roles.
- Address shortages of critical supplies, including PPE, by investing $30 billion to provide 100% federal reimbursement for critical emergency response resources to states, local governments, and Tribes, including deployment of the National Guard. Also invest $10 billion to expand domestic manufacturing for pandemic supplies.
- Extend and expand emergency paid leave measures until Sept. 30, 2021.
- Reduce the number of uninsured persons by having Congress subsidize (COBRA) through the end of September and expand and increase Premium Tax Credits for Marketplace plans.
- Expand access to behavioral health services by asking Congress to appropriate $4 billion to HRSA and SAMHSA. (Presumably, some of this would go to FQHCs.)
Pennsylvania Launches Retail Pharmacy Partnership
Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine announced that the Department of Health requested the federal government launch the Retail Pharmacy Partnership with two retail partners, TopCo Associates, LLC, and Rite Aid, to expand access to vaccinate healthcare personnel, and eventually other phases of the state’s vaccine plan.
The Daily Yonder’s Covid-19 Dashboard for Rural America
January 22, 2021
The Daily Yonder is monitoring the spread of Covid-19 in rural America with maps, charts, and related reporting from across the nation.
See the state of the pandemic in your county
Jobs Recovery Plateaus for Rural Counties in November
By Bill Bishop
The country has been scratching its way back to more normal levels of employment after the spring economic shutdown. But the recovery shows signs of stalling in the most recent county employment report.
Read more
Rural Vaccine Access Varies Widely, Sources Say
By Liz Carey and Olivia Weeks
There’s no public data on how much vaccine is making it to each U.S. county. So the story of vaccine distribution in rural America is anecdotal and diverse.
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Rural Death Toll Passes 60,000; New Infections Decline
By Tim Murphy and Tim Marema
The number of new Covid-19 cases in rural America declined last week, but deaths stemming from the coronavirus continued to occur at record levels.
Read more
NIOSH COVID-19 Update
As part of NIOSH’s efforts to keep our stakeholders up to date on the CDC and NIOSH COVID-19 response, below is a summary of new information posted this week.
Resources for Essential Workers
COVID-19 Vaccine Communication Toolkit for Essential Workers
A new communication toolkit is available to help employers build confidence in their workforce for this important new vaccine. The toolkit will help employers across various industries provide information about COVID-19 vaccines, increase awareness about vaccination benefits, and address common questions and concerns. The toolkit contains a variety of resources including key messages, FAQs, posters, newsletter content, and more. Partners are encouraged to adapt the key messages to the language, tone, and format that will resonate with the organizations and industries they serve.
Interim List of Categories of Essential Workers Mapped to Standardized Industry Codes and Titles
An interim list is now available to help state, local, tribal, and territorial officials and organizations prepare for the allocation of initially limited COVID-19 vaccine supply. The interim list maps essential industries to corresponding COVID-19 vaccination phases and workforce categories, as recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
For More Information
For more information, please visit the COVID-19 webpage. To stay up to date on new developments, sign up for the COVID-19 newsletter.
PPE Supplies for Dental Available
The Organization for Safety, Asepsis, and Prevention (OSAP) announced that the dental industry now has ample supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) including surgical masks, respirators, and disposable gowns. PPE optimization is no longer necessary.
National Slavery & Human Trafficking Prevention Month
January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, and the National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center (NHTTAC) is offering free training about trafficking as well as offer resources, and information about COVID-19 in the field on their website. They also offer SOAR Online – a series of on-demand continuing education/continuing medical education training modules that you can complete in your own time. They discuss the SOAR framework, how to apply it to identify individuals who are at risk of, currently experiencing, or who have experienced trafficking and connect them with the resources they need. Access the full CE/CME information and start your online training.
Vaccine Hesitancy in Rural America
A new Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor survey data finds that residents of rural America are among the most hesitant populations to get a COVID-19 vaccine, which could pose a significant challenge for the nation’s mass vaccination effort. The analysis shows 35 percent of people living in rural areas say they probably or definitely would not get a COVID-19 vaccine that had been deemed safe and effective and was available for free, compared to 27 percent of suburban and 26 percent of urban residents who say the same. Read the full analysis.