Light posting this week....

Sorry about the infrequent updates this week. As many of you are no doubt doing, I’m still spending a lot of time dealing with H1N1-related issues. We already have a shortage of N95 masks, so have been working with units to educate them about re-use. H1N1 vaccine may be arriving sometime in early October, in limited quantities, so we are busy prioritizing risk groups for vaccination. We are also starting to see symptomatic healthcare workers in our employee health clinic for testing (we are testing those who meet “influenza-like illness” criteria in an effort to get those who test negative for H1N1 back to work sooner than the current CDC recommendation of 7 days). Meanwhile, our state department of public health is preparing to recommend that healthcare workers can return to work after 24 hours afebrile with improvement in other symptoms. We’ll soon be in a situation where our state department of health has substantially different recommendations than CDC for both isolation precautions (surgical vs. N95 masks) and healthcare worker sick leave. Unless the CDC issues updated guidance soon…..

Time for another reality check—pneumonia and influenza mortality remains below the epidemic threshold:

Sufficiently bored now? Then read more about MRSA everywhere, this time in our favorite animals….