Entering the Winter Season, How Many Nursing Facility Residents and Staff Were Up-To-Date With Their COVID-19 Vaccines?

(By Priya Chidambaram and Alice Burns for The Kaiser Family Foundation Published: Dec 12, 2022)

Moving into the holiday—and COVID-19/flu —seasons, KFF finds that only 45% of nursing home residents and 22% of staff were up to date with their COVID-19 vaccines as of the Sunday before Thanksgiving. This is concerning because people in nursing facilities are at higher risk of having worse outcomes if infected with COVID-19 and one-fifth of all U.S. COVID-19 deaths occurred among residents and staff in long-term care facilities. Keeping nursing facility residents and staff current on their vaccines is an important tool for reducing deaths from COVID-19 and especially important this holiday season when risks may be compounded by high rates of other respiratory viruses. Public health experts predicted that the U.S. will see higher than-normal cases of flu, RSV, and COVID-19 and hospital capacity may be reduced. Preliminary data support these predictions, showing that flu hospitalizations have hit their highest levels for this time of year in a decade. Similarly, COVID-19 hospitalizations increased by 17% in the week leading into Thanksgiving. The Biden Administration has been encouraging Americans to get their COVID-19 boosters prior to the holiday season, but take-up of boosters has been lower when compared to the primary vaccination series. Continue reading here…

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