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President Biden has said that all staff in nursing homes must be vaccinated against COVID-19, or else he will cut funding to the facilities. He has ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to enforce this rule, and any facility that isn’t in compliance will not be able to participate in Medicare or Medicaid programs.
This is the first time the U.S. government has made a vaccination requirement, aside from regulations required of federal employees.
The president continued, "The studies show that a highly vaccinated nursing home staff is associated with at least 30% less COVID-19 cases among long-term care residents. With this announcement, I'm using the power of the federal government, as a payer of health care costs, to ensure we reduce those risks to our most vulnerable seniors."
He added a message about the importance of vaccines, "Let's be clear. Vaccination requirements have been around for decades. Students, health care professionals, our troops are typically required to receive vaccines to prevent everything from polio to small pox to measles to mumps to rubella. In fact, the reason most people in America don't worry about polio, small pox, measles, mumps or rubella today is because of vaccines."
