Honestly, I think if you work in a long-term care facility and refuse to get vaccinated, you should find another job.  The government should provide financial support and assistance to allow long-term care facilities to increase salaries to replace those to refuse to get vaccinated and support those who do and want to stay.

Nearly 72% of certified nursing assistants say they don’t want to be vaccinated, a recent survey found.

The federal long-term-care vaccination program, led by CVS Health Corp. and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., will begin its broad rollout in a dozen states this week, with hundreds of facilities slated for visits during the next few days. But surveys have signaled that many staffers are reluctant to get the shots, and some already have been declining them in the limited number of facilities where vaccinations have been administered.

At the nursing home at John Knox Village, in Pompano Beach, Fla., which became one of the first U.S. facilities to get the vaccine last Wednesday, about one-third of staffers participated, according to Mark Raynor, director of health-care services.

Unbelievable.  The thing is, you have to vaccinate the people working at nursing homes.  The in-and-out is just too rapid for the residents.  I read life expectancy when you enter a nursing home is only five months.  It’s just not practical to assume you can vaccinate all those people with a vaccine that requires to shots a month apart.  I mean, that should happen, too, but it’s imperative that all staffers and all visitors have the vaccine.

I have to admit I was a little squirrely about the vaccine when it first was being developed six to eight months ago, simply because I was concerned about the speed of development, but you can call me a convert.  Got an extra Pfizer or Moderna vaccine?  I’m ready!  Let me know when and where!  Not only that, I feel like that could have / should have been even more aggressive about rolling the vaccine out to the most vulnerable.  The risk / benefit equation is very different for a ninety-year-old nursing home resident than it is for a thirty-year-old nurse, so the former should have gotten approval for the vaccine sooner.

Lawyers have said that employers are generally legally allowed to mandate Covid-19 vaccines for workers, a stance reinforced last week in guidelines released by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But nursing-home owners have said they don’t plan to require the vaccine. Many facilities are already facing staffing squeezes after months of pandemic challenges.