About 20,000 Nursing Home Workers Across the U.S. Have Vaccine Medical Exemptions
More than a year after COVID-19 vaccines became widely available in nursing homes nationwide, the facilities have gone a long way toward blunting the virus’s threat to their most vulnerable residents.
Dr. Jana Shaw, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse who studies vaccine hesitancy, said she thinks medical exemptions are being abused. “Previous research has shown, as we started mandating vaccinations, people will find avenues to get out of the obligation of getting vaccinated,” she said.
But staff vaccination rates vary by state and by facility. One in six nursing facilities has a vaccination rate of less than 75%, according to CDC data. Nursing homes in Rhode Island, for example, have a vaccination rate of 99%; nursing homes in Montana have a vaccination rate of 77%. A far larger group — 164,000 workers — has declined to get the vaccine for another reason, which can include a religious objection. The federal government doesn’t track the number of religious exemptions.
Facilities with unvaccinated workers face graduated penalties that could result in losing federal funding as a “final measure,” according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that regulates nursing homes. The agency has the data to identify facilities with unusually high rates of medical exemptions, but it has instructed state inspectors to review the exemptions only during routine visits rather than during special inspections.
At least one facility has been cited by state regulators for an employee claiming a false medical reason to forgo the vaccine. Inspectors issued a deficiency to Premier Washington Health Center in Washington, Pennsylvania, after an employee obtained a medical exemption for multiple sclerosis. The condition is not among those the CDC lists as qualifying for an exemption; the employee was later granted a different exemption, according to the state’s inspection report.
Leslie, the health researcher, said people who are reluctant to get vaccinated will seek ways around the mandates. He observed this among California schoolchildren after the state in 2015 eliminated a personal-belief exemption for vaccines kids must get to attend school. The following year, the rate of medical exemptions nearly tripled, according to his research.
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