Why Federal Research Bolsters the Case for Coronavirus Vaccine Mandates

“There are more breakthrough infections happening than there were before — that’s a real phenomenon,” said Heather Scobie, an epidemiologist at the C.D.C. and lead author of the largest of the studies. “But for the most part, people are not going to hospitals if they’ve been vaccinated.”

The new data show that vaccine mandates will protect millions more people, particularly against severe disease, and will relieve pressure on the health care system, Dr. Dean said. “It also sets a precedent for other organizations to make similar decisions” about mandates, she added.

The administration’s new mandates include health care workers, requiring that any provider receiving Medicaid or Medicare funding impose a vaccination requirement on staff members. This is the measure mostly likely to have an immediate impact, experts said, because health care facilities are high-risk settings for transmission.

There is ample historical precedent for the decision to hold hospitals to certain standards — notably, the historical directive to desegregate patients by race, Dr. Jha said.

“We have a real dearth of leadership from health care systems that have not mandated within their own organizations, and it is imperative that the president require that patients be protected,” he added.

The requirement may drive some health care and nursing home workers, particularly many who are close to retirement age, to leave the profession, and exacerbate staffing shortages. Even so, there is more to be gained than lost by the mandates, said Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, founding director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy and Research at Boston University.

“This is an important step to get us out of the pandemic,” she said. “The very people who are taking care of the vulnerable coming into the hospital need to be our first line of defense.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/health/vaccine-mandates-cdc.html