Nursing home employees in Connecticut won’t be required to get a second COVID-19 booster shot, state officials said late last week.
“I do not anticipate that we are going to be moving in that direction,” Manisha Juthani, MD, the state’s public health commissioner, told the CT Mirror Thursday.
“I think for the younger age groups of those who are eligible, there is certainly less urgency. The only urgency I see is that we may have somewhat of a spike or surge coming up over the next several weeks,” she added, “so getting a shot may be another way to just protect yourself a little bit further.”
The state’s nursing home industry will be “strongly supportive” of the second booster for residents, according to Matthew Barrett, president and CEO of the Connecticut Association of Health Care Facilities.
“It offers maximum protection. For the vulnerable population that we serve, the vaccine has demonstrated in study after study that it lessens the severity of illness,” he told the news organization.
Juthani’s comments come after the Food and Drug Administration, and later the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, announced last week that older adults and immunocompromised individuals are now eligible to receive a second booster shot to better protect themselves against COVID variants.
State officials, for now, will just continue to encourage those eligible, like nursing home residents, to get the second booster shot. Connecticut was one of several states, including California, New Mexico and New Jersey, to require a booster for nursing home staff.
None have appeared to require a second booster shot for workers.
