The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently updated the interim infection prevention and control recommendations for healthcare personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the bottom of the webpage, it speaks specifically to assisted living, group homes, and other residential care settings (excluding nursing homes). It states that long term care settings (excluding nursing homes), whose staff provide non-skilled personal care (defined as any non-medical care that can reasonably and safely be provided by non-licensed caregivers, such as help with daily activities like bathing and dressing, medication administration, cooking, and laundry) should follow community prevention strategies based on COVID-19 hospital admission levels similar to independent living, retirement communities, or other non-health care congregate settings. This resource was updated on May 11, 2023, and provides a breakdown of community-level prevention strategies based on the hospital admission levels. It adds that residents in these settings should be counseled on protecting themselves and others, including recommendations for source control if they are immunocompromised or at high risk for severe disease.
Furthermore, it calls out that visiting or shared health care personnel who enter the setting to provide health care to one or more residents (such as physical therapy, wound care, IV injections, or catheter care offered by a home health agency nurse) should follow the health care IPC recommendations outlined in the infection prevention and control recommendations for healthcare personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic. Likewise, if staff provide in-person services for a resident with COVID-19 infection, they should follow the recommended IPC practices to protect themselves and others from potential exposure.