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Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak announced Sunday afternoon a statewide task force to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19...The task force will be led by Jim Murren, former CEO of MGM Resorts International...to focus "immediately marshalling and organizing all of Nevada’s private sector resources in support of the local and State Government’s already robust efforts to tackle COVID-19."...READ MORE

Trump also announced a range of executive actions, including a new public-private partnership to expand coronavirus testing capabilities with drive-through locations, as Washington tries to subdue the new virus whose spread is roiling markets, shuttering institutions and disrupting the lives of everyday Americans...READ MORE

Trump ordered travel from Europe to the United States restricted for 30 days, responding to mounting pressure to take action against a rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak disrupting nearly all corners of U.S. daily life...“We are marshaling the full power of the federal government and the private sector to protect the American people,” Trump said in a prime-time televised address from the Oval Office on Wednesday...READ MORE

Gov. Steve Sisolak said that while a testing kit shortage makes it impossible to tell how much coronavirus has affected Nevada, the pace of the virus’ spread around the world means Nevada must “act quickly” to slow it — including taking drastic measures such as shutting state offices, limiting the size of gatherings and encouraging employees to work from home if possible...the governor asked local governments to enforce a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guideline that all events with attendance above 50 be canceled or postponed for the next eight weeks...READ MORE

A pharmacy group is taking a wait-and-see approach after California Governor Gavin Newsom announced several drug reforms–including a state generic prescription drug label...If the proposed reforms are approved, California would be the first state to have its own generic drug label...“A major cause of skyrocketing prescription drug prices is bargaining asymmetry, by which the pharmaceutical industry, often wielding monopoly power, is left unchecked, in the absence of a strong counterparty at the bargaining table…” Newsom said in the executive order...Although the California Pharmacists Association applauded the Governor’s “commitment to the healthcare of all Californians and ensuring all patients can continue to have access to affordable, life-saving medications," the organization said in a press release...CPhA declined to say whether it supports a state prescription drug label...READ MORE

The Trump administration has issued blanket waivers and new flexibilities to help hospitals and facilities cope with the coronavirus outbreak...“It is vital that federal requirements designed for periods of relative calm do not hinder measures needed in an emergency,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a statement. “The nationwide waivers we are activating today will be a godsend for those on the frontlines of the fight against this new virus.”...Some of the waivers and flexibilities that CMS took on Friday include:

• Waiving requirements that critical access hospitals limit the number of beds to 25 and length of stay to 96 hours;
• Enabling acute care hospitals to house acute care patients in a separate unit;
• Waiving replacement requirements when durable medical equipment gets damaged or unusable. A contractor can waive requirements such as a new physician’s order, face-to-face requirement and other documentation; and
• Allowing long-term care hospitals to exclude patients stays from the 25-day average length requirement if treatment is required in conjunction with the emergency.
• CMS also sought to quickly approve waivers for states and territories for Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program...READ MORE

Sisolak announced during a press conference in Las Vegas that he had signed the emergency declaration, which included activating a State Emergency Operation Center and emergency team to centralize response to the virus, loosening regulations for government agencies to purchase food and other supplies, creation of a website with centralized information and reinforced the attorney general’s office’s ability to enforce consumer protection laws...“At this time it has become clear that this extra step is necessary in order to meet the goal, to ensure that the public health and safety of our citizens and to ensure that we have the resources at our disposal to immediately and aggressively respond,” Sisolak said...READ MORE

Hours into his new job, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order...that could dramatically reshape the way prescription drugs are paid for and acquired...Newsom directed state officials to set up what he said would ultimately be the nation’s largest single-purchaser system for prescription drugs...It directed California’s massive Medicaid system to negotiate prescription drug prices for all of its 13 million recipients, changing their benefits from a managed-care or HMO approach to one that allows the state to handle all the purchases...The state would create a list of drugs to be purchased in bulk or targeted for price negotiations...The executive order also took the first steps to allow private companies and other governmental agencies to participate in the process of negotiating drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.