THE FDA’S OTHER PROBLEM: MICE — The Food and Drug Administration has a field mouse infestation, POLITICO’s David Lim and Lauren Gardner report, exacerbated by the food left in desks at the mostly empty agency headquarters during the pandemic. Like other government buildings, the FDA buildings at the White Oak campus had some mice problems before everyone went home in 2020, but things have gotten worse as many staffers continue to telecommute. “It is accurate that food products left behind in offices when maximum telework was implemented is a contributing factor to offices with pest control issues,” FDA spokesperson Stephanie Caccomo told POLITICO. Caccomo pointed out that the agency’s 662-acre campus sits among fields and woods that provide a natural habitat for field mice. She also said the mouse issue wouldn’t affect the agency’s plan to bring people back into the office. But, as a former official said, it won’t boost anyone’s morale to open a desk after two years at home and find mice evidence. “That’s certainly not the kind of thing that’s going to excite people,” the official said. MASKS BACK ON, PHILLY — Philadelphia became the first major U.S. city to reinstate an indoor mask mandate on Monday as the Omicron BA.2 subvariant continues to spread, POLITICO’s Myah Ward reports. The move corresponds with the city's data-driven guidelines. To remain in “Level 1: All Clear,” the city’s Covid metrics must meet two or more requirements: new average daily cases must stay below 100, hospitalizations must stay below 50 and cases must have “increased by less than 50% in the previous 10 days.” On Monday, Philadelphia Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole said the city would move to the second level, which requires indoor masking, reporting an average of 142 new cases a day, roughly 50 percent higher than they were 10 days ago. Nationally, Covid-19 case numbers are still flat, with cases increasing in some states and decreasing in others. Hospitalization numbers and deaths continue to decline. This morning, White House Covid-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha told Today that it was “absolutely on the table” for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to consider extending the public transportation mask mandate. SPOTLIGHT RETURNS TO NURSING HOMES — The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is looking at how to improve safety at long-term care facilities by identifying optimal staffing levels and evaluating infection outbreaks, POLITICO’s Rachael Levy reports. Nursing home residents have been among the hardest hit during the Covid-19 pandemic when shared, indoor settings facilitated the spread of the airborne virus. CMS has said the problem was partly due to low staffing levels and on Monday said it’s seeking input to determine the best staffing levels at those facilities and on a potential measure that would evaluate facilities based on their staff turnover. The agency also wants to monitor the occurrence of infections that residents acquire while in nursing homes and assess facilities based on their performance in infection prevention and control. Infection-control lapses are among the most common faults of nursing homes during federal safety surveys and often include bad hand-hygiene practices among staffers “or improper use of protective equipment or procedures during an infectious disease outbreak,” CMS said.
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