Fewer health care workers are getting the most recent COVID-19 booster.
Findings from a new survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show 15.3 percent of the roughly 8 million health care workers in hospitals have gotten the most recent COVID-19 booster for the 2023-24 respiratory virus season.
Coverage was lowest — at 12.7 percent — among licensed independent practitioners.
Vaccination coverage was even lower among nursing home health workers. The survey found that just 10.5 percent of the country’s 1.8 million nursing home personnel received the most recent COVID-19 booster during the 2023-24 respiratory illness season.
Health care workers in both spaces had higher vaccination coverage during last year’s respiratory virus season, according to the CDC.
During the 2022-23 respiratory virus season, 17.8 percent and 22.8 percent of health care workers in hospitals and nursing homes had received a COVID-19 booster, respectively.
The decline in vaccination rates comes after the Biden administration ended its mandated COVID-19 vaccination requirement in May 2023.
On top of this, COVID-19 vaccines were also commercialized in the fall of that year, potentially increasing costs for facilities and health care personnel, according to the agency.
“These two events might have affected vaccination campaigns and on-site access to COVID-19 vaccines in nursing homes,” the CDC wrote in an analysis of the survey data.
But a recent survey of health care workers found that while many personnel believe that COVID-19 is a serious health threat, few health care workers have confidence in the “effectiveness, safety, and benefit” of the COVID-19 vaccination.
The CDC recommends that everyone 6 months and older should get the COVID-19 vaccine, which protects children and adults from severe disease, hospitalization and death.