Press Releases

10/15/2021

Connecticut DPH Provides Update on Long-term Care Facility Staff Vaccination Rates

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct. 15, 2021

CONTACT:     Chris Boyle, Director of Communications

                        (860) 706-9654 – christopher.boyle@ct.gov

 

Connecticut Department of Public Health Provides Update on Long-term Care Facility Staff Vaccination Rates

 

HARTFORD, Conn.— Nearly three-fourths of all long-term care facilities subject to Executive Order 13F, the state’s long-term care vaccine mandate, have reported to the Connecticut Department of Health that 95 percent of workers covered by the mandate are either fully vaccinated or partially vaccinated. Through October 8, 2021, long-term care facilities reported a total of 61,227 staff subject to the Executive Order. Of this number, 89 percent are reported as fully vaccinated, and 7 percent are reported as partially vaccinated. 

 

A fully vaccinated person is an individual for whom at least 14 days have elapsed since the person received the final dose of a vaccine approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. A partially vaccinated person is someone who has received the first dose and has either received a second dose or has an appointment for the second dose in a two-dose series vaccination, such as Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or has received a single-dose vaccine, such as Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine and for whom the 14 days has not elapsed. 

 

In addition, long-term care facilities reported 2,851 “covered LTC workers” as unvaccinated because they had medical or religious exemptions or were unvaccinated for other reasons. DPH will follow up with individual facilities to ensure full compliance with the mandate. Under Executive Order 13F, long-term care facilities cannot employ or enter into a contract or other arrangement with a covered LTC worker who is not fully or partially vaccinated and does not have a medical or religious exemption for COVID-19 vaccination.

 

Long-term care facilities subject to the Executive Order include nursing homes, assisted living services agencies, managed residential communities, residential care homes, chronic disease hospitals, and intermediate care facilities for individuals with intellectual disabilities (ICF/IIDs). 

 

DPH also reports that as of the September 28th reporting deadline, 226 long-term care facilities (35%) of 643 long-term care facilities subject to the Order failed to submit compliance attestations by the state’s reporting deadline of midnight on September 28th. DPH has learned that part of this underreporting may have resulted from the decision by some facilities which share buildings and staff to report all covered LTC workers under a single facility so as not to double count the number of workers subject to the Order. DPH has revised the compliance report so that facilities can indicate if they are consolidating their data under one report. All facilities subject to the Order are required to submit a compliance report. 

 

DPH reports that 167 long-term care facilities had yet to comply with the reporting requirements of Executive Order 13F as of October 8th. Failure to comply with the Order, including reporting requirements set forth by DPH, is subject to civil penalties of up to $20,000 per day. DPH will begin issuing notices of civil penalties next week to facilities that failed to report by the deadline or have not reported at all. In addition, DPH will begin auditing facility reports to confirm continued compliance with other requirements of the Order, including facility obligations to authenticate the vaccination status of covered LTC workers. 

 

“We commend the long-term care community for achieving such high vaccination rates,” said DPH Commissioner Manisha Juthani, MD. “The residents of our long-term care facilities are some of the most vulnerable citizens of our state. We applaud the tens of thousands of vaccinated long-term care workers for prioritizing the health and safety of the patients and residents under their care as well as the health and safety of themselves, their families, and their co-workers.”    

 

Commissioner Juthani also encourages people to explore the new online tool developed by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that makes it easier to check COVID-19 vaccination rates of nursing home staff and residents. Since May, Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing homes have been required to report weekly COVID-19 vaccination data for both residents and staff. CMS has begun posting the information at COVID-19 Nursing Home Data, or https://data.cms.gov/covid-19/covid-19-nursing-home-data (part of the www.medicare.gov website).

 

Below is a breakdown of the number of long-term care facilities that submitted compliance attestations to DPH through October 8, 2021:  

                                                                                                                                                                                                

	Submitted	Not Submitted	Total
Assisted Living Services Agency	93	21	114
Chronic Disease Hospital	2	1	3
ICF/IID	50	35	85
Managed Residential Communities	58	79	137
Nursing Home	205	4	209
Residential Care Home	68	27	95
Total	476	167	643

 

Below is a breakdown of vaccination status for covered LTC workers by facility type through October 8, 2021: 

 

 

 

^{Published by: Heather Trabal, MD}

^{Heather.Trabal@ct.gov}