With COVID-19 turning home into the workplace nationwide, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on the Best States for Working from Home, as well as accompanying videos, in order to highlight which areas are thriving and which are struggling in this pandemic economy.

To identify which states are most conducive to working from home, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 12 key metrics. The data set ranges from the share of workers working from home before COVID-19 to internet cost and cybersecurity. We also considered factors like how large and how crowded homes are in the state. Together, these metrics show how feasible working from home is in terms of cost, comfort and safety. Below, you can see highlights from the report, along with a WalletHub Q&A.

Key Stats

• Colorado has the highest share of the labor force working from home, 7.70 percent, which is 3.3 times higher than in Mississippi, the state with the lowest at 2.30 percent.
• New Hampshire has the highest share of households with a broadband internet subscription, 78.80 percent, which is 1.7 times higher than in Mississippi, the state with the lowest at 46.80 percent.
• Connecticut has the highest share of households with access to broadband speeds over 25 Mbps, 98.70 percent, which is 1.5 times higher than in Mississippi, the state with the lowest at 65.40 percent.
• South Dakota has the fewest cybercrime victims per 100,000 residents, 54.73, which is four times fewer than in Nevada, the state with the most at 218.31.
• Indiana has the lowest amount lost per victim as a result of internet crime, $2,465.73, which is 11.5 times lower than in Ohio, the state with the highest at $28,394.32.
• North Dakota has the lowest residential retail price of electricity, 9.01 cents per kWh, which is 3.5 times lower than in Hawaii, the state with the highest at 31.70 cents per kWh.

To view the full report and your state’s rank, please visit:
https://wallethub.com/edu/best-states-for-working-from-home/72801/

The Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) Secretary Dennis Davin announced the creation of the Business-to-Business Interchange Directory to connect organizations and businesses directly to manufacturers producing COVID-19-related products and supplies.

Company and product information provided in the directory were gathered in good faith as a means of connecting Pennsylvania businesses and organizations that are seeking various PPE and other related items to combat the COVID-19 crisis. The information made available is from those entities who voluntarily contacted the commonwealth through the Manufacturing Call to Action Portal or the Pennsylvania Critical Medical Supplies Procurement Portal.

Currently included in the directory are manufacturers of N95 masks, fabric and other masks, and surgical masks. Additional supplies and materials will be added to the directory as DCED identifies potential manufacturers. Businesses that would like to be added to the directory or those with questions should contact RA-DCEDPAMCTAP@pa.gov.

The Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) Secretary Dennis Davin announced that 126 companies in 30 counties have received approved funding through a new program developed under the Pennsylvania Industrial Development Authority’s (PIDA) Small Business First Fund, the COVID-19 Working Capital Access Program (CWCA), totaling more than $10 million.

A list of approved projects can be found here.

PIDA staff continue to review submitted applications for approval and are actively working with DCED’s Certified Economic Development Organizations (CEDOs) to disburse CWCA loan funds at the time of approval. Information on future awardees will be released as it becomes available. 

DCED continues to update its website with financial and other resources. 

Today, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issues new recommendations specifically targeted to communities that are in Phase 1 of the Guidelines for President Trump’s Opening Up America Again with low incidence or relatively low and stable incidence of COVID-19 cases. The recommendations update earlier guidance provided by CMS on limiting non-essential surgeries and medical procedures. The new CMS guidelines recommend a gradual transition and encourage health care providers to coordinate with local and state public health officials, and to review the availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other supplies, workforce availability, facility readiness, and testing capacity when making the decision to re-start or increase in-person care.

The new recommendations can be found here: https://www.cms.gov/files/document/covid-flexibility-reopen-essential-non-covid-services.pdf

The Guidelines for Opening Up America Again can be found here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/openingamerica/#criteria

Agencies partner with nursing homes to keep nursing home residents safe

Today, under the leadership of President Trump, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced new regulatory requirements that will require nursing homes to inform residents, their families and representatives of COVID-19 cases in their facilities. In addition, as part of President Trump’s Opening Up America, CMS will now require nursing homes to report cases of COVID-19 directly to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This information must be reported in accordance with existing privacy regulations and statute. This measure augments longstanding requirements for reporting infectious disease to State and local health departments. Finally, CMS will also require nursing homes to fully cooperate with CDC surveillance efforts around COVID-19 spread.

CDC will be providing a reporting tool to nursing homes that will support Federal efforts to collect nationwide data to assist in COVID-19 surveillance and response. This joint effort is a result of the CMS-CDC Work Group on Nursing Home Safety. CMS plans to make the data publicly available. This effort builds on recent recommendations from the American Health Care Association and Leading Age, two large nursing home industry associations, that nursing homes quickly report COVID-19 cases.

This data sharing project is only the most recent in the Trump Administration’s rapid and aggressive response to the COVID-19 pandemic. More details are available in the Press Release and Guidance Memo.

Mathematica continues to partner with our clients and groups like the National Association of Health Data Organizations (NAHDO) to respond to the evolving COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in the area of data analytics. COVID-19 has affected health care administrative data, such as claims, in several ways. Notably, it has led to changes in diagnostic and procedural coding guidelines, payment policies, and shifts in case mix. Analysts, actuaries, and data scientists need this information to respond to these changes, but the information is scattered across many sources focused on specific topics (such as coding telehealth services in Medicaid claims).

In response, Mathematica created a COVID-19 Data Primer.  Read more here.

As part of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s (NIOSH) efforts to keep our stakeholders up to date on the CDC and NIOSH coronavirus disease (COVID-19) response, below is a summary of new information posted this week.

Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
Healthcare personnel are essential members of the nation’s workforce and are on the frontlines in the fight against COVID-19. As a result, they may also be at increased risk of getting infected by COVID-19. This week, CDC published the first preliminary description of U.S. data on COVID-19 cases in healthcare personnel in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). CDC found more than 9,200 healthcare workers have been infected with COVID-19. The report describes data on characteristics among healthcare personnel with confirmed COVID-19 that include age, gender, race and ethnicity, where exposures occurred, symptoms, underlying health conditions, and health outcomes, such as hospitalization and death.

Updated Infection Control Guidance for Healthcare Settings
CDC has updated the national COVID-19 infection control guidance for healthcare settings to include the recommendation that all U.S. healthcare facilities put policies into place requiring everyone entering the facility to practice source control, regardless of symptoms. This recommendation is intended to protect healthcare personnel by reducing their risk for exposure as we continue to learn how COVID-19 spreads, particularly from asymptomatic and presymptomatic people.

Conserving and Extending Respirators for Nonhealthcare Sectors
CDC has released interim guidance that offers strategies to conserve, extend, and respond to shortages in the supply of NIOSH-approved filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) used in nonhealthcare worksites, such as manufacturing and construction.

Cleaning and Disinfection Guidance for Nonemergency Transport
People who are known or suspected to have COVID-19 may use nonemergency vehicle services, such as passenger vans, accessible vans, and cars, for transportation to receive essential medical care. CDC has published interim guidance for the cleaning and disinfection of these nonemergency transport vehicles.

For more information, please visit the COVID-19 webpage. To stay up to date on new developments, sign up for the COVID-19 newsletter.

The COVID-19 Federal Rural Resource Guide is a helpful resource published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture unveiled by the USDA for rural communities looking for federal funding and partnership opportunities to help address COVID-19. Check out www.usda.gov/coronavirus for more information.