Nursing Facility Staff Vaccinations, Boosters, and Shortages After Vaccination Deadlines Passed

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

KFF News  5/16/22

Nursing Facility Staff Vaccinations, Boosters, and Shortages After Vaccination Deadlines Passed

 

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,,,,This analysis uses nursing facility-level data reported by the federal government to track the increase in vaccination rates among nursing facility staff nationally and by state between August 2021 (when the vaccine mandate was first announced) and March 27th, 2022 (after the vaccine deadline for health workers had passed in all states), building on a previous data note.

While this analysis does not directly attribute the increase in vaccination rates to the mandate, since many factors could affect these measures, the trends are nonetheless helpful for understanding the impact of different policies on rates of infections, hospitalization, and deaths attributable to COVID over time. Key findings from our analysis include:

Vaccination Rates: Nursing facility staff vaccination rates increased nationally by 25 percentage points, from 63% to 88%, between August 2021 and March 2022 (Figures 1 and 2). As of March 2022, 12% of nursing facilities nationally reported 100% staff vaccination rates, and 39% of facilities reported rates over 90% but less than 100% (Figure 3). The remaining 49% of facilities reported rates of 90% or below. These data cannot be used to estimate the share of facilities in each state that comply with the mandate since data do not account for vaccine exemptions.

Booster Rates: As of March 2022, the national booster rate for nursing facility staff was 44%, ranging from 93% in MA to 24% in FL, MO, and MS (Figure 4). While the federal mandate does not explicitly require booster shots, five states (CT, MA, NJ, NY, and CA) that reported a greater than 30-percentage point increase in booster rates from January 2022 to March 2022, as well as some of the highest booster rates in March 2022, had state-level booster mandates during this time period. Nationally, about one-third of facilities reported booster rates among nursing facility staff higher than 50%, while another one-third of facilities reported booster rates under 25% (Figure 5).

Staff Shortages: More than one in four (28%) of nursing facilities nationally reported staffing shortages as of March 2022 ranging from 63% in AK to 3% in CA (Figure 6). Staffing shortages peaked nationally during the Omicron wave, with nearly one in three facilities reporting a shortage in January 2022. Staffing shortage rates have fallen since then from 33%, and remained relatively stable through March 2022, even after the implementation of the vaccine mandate....

 

 

[toomuchbaloney]

Facilities with high percentages of unvaccinated staff will continue to struggle with staffing as those staff are something on the order of 10 times more likely to get ill with the virus and require sick time.