CDC: About 30% of Health Care Workers Are Unvaccinated

About 30% of health care workers in more than 2000 hospitals in the United States remain unvaccinated against COVID-19, according to findings from an analysis by the CDC.

The analysis found that vaccination rates increased from 36% to 60% between January 2021 and April 2021 but then slowed, reaching just 70% as of September 2021.

“Our analysis revealed that vaccine coverage among U.S. hospital-based [health care professionals] stalled significantly after initial uptake,” Hannah Reses, MPH, a member of the CDC team that conducted the analysis, said in a statement. “Additional efforts are needed now to improve [health care professionals] vaccine coverage and reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission to patients and other hospital staff.”

Vaccination rates were highest among health care professionals in children’s hospitals (77%), followed by those in short-term acute-care hospitals (70.1), long-term acute-care hospitals (68.8%), and critical-access hospitals (64%).

Health care workers in facilities located in the metropolitan counties had the highest vaccination rates (71%) compared with those in rural counties (65.1%) and non-metropolitan rural counties (63.3%).

Vaccination coverage increased just 5% from April 2021 to August 2021 but also increased another 5% from August 2021 to September 2021, suggesting that the rise was associated with the Delta variants or vaccine mandates in some areas.

Investigators evaluated data voluntarily reported to the US Department of Health and Human Services Unified Hospital Data Surveillance System between January 20, 2021, and September 15, 2021.

They included 2086 reported data on health care professional vaccination coverage and total personnel numbers that met specific analysis validation checks.

The findings were published in the American Journal of Infection Control, a journal of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology.

Reference

Most comprehensive analysis to date reveals 30% of healthcare personnel in US hospitals remain unvaccinated against COVID-19. EurekAlert. News release. November 18, 2021. Accessed November 18, 2021. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/934989