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COVID-19

UPMC Altoona gets ‘A’ from Leapfrog

UPMC Altoona has received an A, the highest mark, this spring from The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit watchdog organization that rates hospitals on their ability to protect patients from preventable errors, accidents, injuries and infections. It’s the sixth consecutive A for the hospital from Leapfrog, which issues reports twice a year. The hospital also has a four-stars-out-of-five rating from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and only one “black mark” among 16 illness categories from the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment’s latest performance ...

GOP: Wolf should fire vendor that mishandled virus data

Pennsylvania should immediately terminate the no-bid state contract of a company that performed COVID-19 contact tracing and exposed the private medical information of tens of thousands of residents, Republican state lawmakers said Monday. GOP leaders also called for state and federal probes into the Atlanta-based contractor’s mishandling of the data, and what they said was the slow response by the Wolf administration. Employees of Insight Global used unauthorized Google accounts — readily viewable online — to store names, phone numbers, email addresses, COVID-19 exposure ...

Shelters struggle to vaccinate homeless people

PITTSBURGH — Light of Life Rescue Mission had a vaccine clinic planned to help vaccinate homeless people earlier this month. The shelter, which operates short- and long-term programs for the homeless, as well as addiction recovery and employment assistance, planned to administer the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Then, about three hours before the April 13 event was supposed to start, news broke that use of the vaccine had been paused. The shelter quickly shifted gears and administered the Moderna vaccine instead, said Jerrel Gilliam, executive director. But the development ...

UPMC sees ‘wave’ of COVID-19 of hospitalizations

The region is in the midst of another “wave” of COVID-19 hospitalizations, and one of the telling features has been that none of those at UPMC hospitals have been vaccinated, according to Dr. David Burwell, chief quality officer for UPMCs Altoona, Bedford, Somerset and Western Maryland. Given that nearly all the area’s residents desperate for shots have gotten or scheduled them, UPMC has begun reaching out to the rest of the populace to make getting shots easier, while connecting with people who’ve been misinformed about alleged hazards, Burwell said in a phone interview ...

Rite Aid expands vaccinations

Rite Aid has expanded COVID-19 vaccinations to all of its more than 2,500 locations in 17 states, including Pennsylvania. While scheduling appointments in advance is recommended to reduce wait time and guarantee availability of the vaccine, Rite Aid is taking walk-ins on a limited basis. Rite Aid’s pharmacists are administering the Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) vaccines. Individuals ages 18 and over can schedule appointments using the Rite Aid scheduling tool found at www.RiteAid.com/covid-19. Those ages 16 and 17 can schedule an appointment with ...

Virus case numbers fall a bit

The numbers of new COVID-19 cases dropped this week in five of the six local counties, although hospitalizations rose in four of them, according to Friday’s weekly update of the state Department of Health’s early warning dashboard. The number of new cases dropped in Blair, Bedford, Cambria, Centre and Clearfield counties, compared to the previous week, with the biggest drop in Cambria. The number of new cases rose in Huntingdon. Conversely, the average daily number of COVID-19 hospitalizations rose this week in Blair. Cambria, Centre and Huntingdon counties, with the biggest ...