Nursing home workers aren’t getting vaccinated — prompting worries about the elderly, staffing, and a coming federal mandate – By Justine McDaniel and Erin McCarthy (The Philadelphia Inquirer) / Oct 1 2021
With a federal vaccine mandate pending, nursing home workers will eventually have to be vaccinated or face losing their jobs. For now, many have ignored Pennsylvania’s request to do so.
Most Pennsylvania nursing homes have failed to achieve an 80% vaccination rate among staff members, missing the COVID-19 vaccination goal the Department of Health had aimed to reach by Friday.
Only 19.6% of the 700 nursing homes statewide had at least 80% of their staff fully vaccinated by Sept. 19, the state Department of Health said Thursday. In the Philadelphia region, a little more than 40% of skilled nursing facilities had met or exceeded the goal, according to an Inquirer analysis.
“Each day we go by with staff not vaccinated, the risk increases … for the most vulnerable members of our community,” said Karen Buck, executive director of the Philadelphia-based SeniorLAW Center. “We can’t be playing Russian roulette with the vulnerable in long-term care facilities.”
The state’s benchmark will be superseded by a federal vaccine mandate that’s on the way for all nursing home workers. But the fact that Pennsylvania’s nursing homes fell so short of the state’s benchmark underscores the widespread resistance to the vaccine among workers.
