Most Nursing Home Staff and Residents Are Not Up to Date with Their COVID-19 Vaccines

As winter approaches, a new KFF analysis finds that less than half (45%) of all nursing facility residents and less than a quarter of staff (22%) are up to date with their COVID-19 vaccinations. That is a sharp drop from the 87 percent of nursing facility residents and staff who completed their primary vaccination series.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now defines being up to date as “having received a bivalent booster or having received a final shot of the original vaccines less than two months ago.”

Federal vaccine clinics and health care worker vaccine mandates contributed to high initial vaccination rates among nursing facility residents and staff. But without ongoing federal initiatives, fewer people may stay up to date with their vaccines.

The share of residents who are up to date ranged from 73 percent in South Dakota to 24 percent in Arizona. Among nursing home staff, the share ranged from 48 percent in California to 10 percent in Alabama.