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CMS issues COVID-19 infection-control guidance for nursing homes

CMS memo QSO-20-14-NH (originally dated March 9, revised March 13, 2020) directed nursing homes nationwide to restrict visitors, screen staff, and cancel communal dining. It also stated that a nursing home could accept a hospital-discharged resident diagnosed with COVID-19, still under Transmission-Based Precautions, if the facility could follow CDC guidance — and must wait if it could not. New York officials later cited this federal guidance as the basis for the state's March 25 admission directive.

Primary quotes

Other
“A nursing home can accept a resident diagnosed with COVID-19 and still under Transmission-Based Precautions for COVID-19 as long as the facility can follow CDC guidance for Transmission-Based Precautions. If a nursing home cannot, it must wait until these precautions are discontinued.”

CMS, QSO-20-14-NH

Linked sources

CMS QSO-20-14-NH — Guidance for Infection Control and Prevention of Coronavirus in Nursing Homes
Tier 1 · report · March 2020 guidance (expired 2023 mirror); contemplated accepting COVID-19-positive residents under precautions

Related contentions

Did admission directives seed COVID-19 into nursing homes — and was the toll obscured?

Unresolved. The 50% undercount is confirmed by the NY AG, but the directive's causal share of nursing-home deaths was never adjudicated — the AG said only that it 'may have' increased risk, and DOJ declined CRIPA investigations in 2021; later data analyses (staffing levels, staff transmission) are cited by both sides without consensus.