Page 13 - DMN1Q22

E
LAW FIRM
Wachler & Associates represents healthcare providers, suppliers, and other entities and individuals in Michigan and nationwide in all areas of health law including, but not limited to:
• Healthcare Corporate and Transactional Matters, including Contracts, Corporate Formation, Mergers, Sales/Acquisitions, and Joint Ventures
• Medicare, Medicaid, and Other Third-Party Payor Audits and Claim Denials
• Licensure, Staff Privilege, and Credentialing Matters
• Provider Contracts
• Billing and Reimbursement Issues
• Stark Law, Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS), and Fraud & Abuse Law Compliance
• Physician and Physician Group Issues
• Regulatory Compliance
• Corporate Practice of Medicine Issues
• Provider Participation/Termination Matters
• Healthcare Litigation
• Healthcare Investigations
• Civil and Criminal Healthcare Fraud
• Medicare and Medicaid Suspensions, Revocations, and Exclusions
• HIPAA, HITECH, 42 CFR Part 2, and Other Privacy Law Compliance
H
H
HE
E
A
A L
LT H C A R E
Delta variant, except for those with a recent booster dose. In mid-January of 2022, a study led by researchers from the LKS Faculty of Medicine at The University of Hong Kong (HKUMed) provided the first information on how the Omicron variant infected the human respiratory tract. The researchers found that the Omicron variant infected and multiplied 70 times faster than the Delta variant in the human bronchus.
According to the CDC, currently, there are insufficient data to determine whether the BA.2 lineage is more transmissible or has a fitness advantage over the BA.1 lineage. According to UKH- SA, BA.2 secondary attack rate is 13.4%, higher than the 10.3% previously seen with BA.1, and vaccines afford similar levels of protection against symptomatic disease by BA.1 and BA.2.
Conclusion
As always, the SARS-COV-2 virus continues to evolve, and new variants and sub-lineages continue to emerge. Within a few weeks of its emergence, the Omicron variant replaced the Delta variant across the globe. Compared to the original SARS-COV-2 and the prior variants, the S-protein of the Omicron variant is highly mutated and can infect people with no immunity and has an ability to infect people with prior immunity from vaccina- tions or previous infections. The Omicron variant has three major sub-lineages, BA.1, BA.2, and BA.3. The BA.1 sub-lineage has the typical Omicron mutations and the BA.2 has been mis- labeled as a ‘Stealth’ variant. At this point, the emergence of new Omicron sub-lineages is unlikely to interfere with our ability to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the laboratory setting. RT-PCR methods remain sensitive and specific because they use multiple genetic targets to detect the SARS-COV-2 variants. Studies on the clinical features and implications of Omicron infections are still being reported. Their results will help us understand the true impact of the global spread of the Omicron variant and its sublineages.
References
1. United Kingdom Health Security Agency: Investigation of SARS-CoV-2 variants: technical briefings. https://www.cdc.gov/ coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/omicron-variant.html
2. Center for Disease Control and Prevention: Omicron Variant: What You Need to Know https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019- ncov/variants/omicron-variant.html
3. Our World in Data: Share of SARS-COV-2 sequences that are omicron variant, Nov 2, 2021 to Feb 2, 2022
4. Venkatakrishnan, AJ, et al. “Omicron Variant of Sars-cov-2 Harbors a Unique Insertion Mutation of Putative Viral or Human Genomic Origin.” OSF Preprints, 3 Dec. 2021. Web.
5. HKUMed finds Omicron SARS-CoV-2 can infect faster and better than Delta in human bronchus but with less severe infection in lung - News | HKUMed
6. Outbreak.info. Michigan, United States Variant Report. Alaa Abdel Latif, Julia L. Mullen, Manar Alkuzweny, Ginger Tsueng, Marco Cano, Emily Haag, Jerry Zhou, Mark Zeller, Emory Hufbauer, Nate Matteson, Chunlei Wu, Kristian G. Andersen, Andrew I. Su, Karthik Gangavarapu, Laura D. Hughes, and the Center for Viral Systems Biology. outbreak.info, (available at https://outbreak.info/location-reports?loc=USA_US-MI). Accessed 7 February 2022
First Quarter 2022
Detroit Medical News 13
S E R V I N G H E A L T H C A R E P R O V I D E R S F O R O V E R 3 0 Y E A R S