And then there was one. Just a single nursing home out of the 47 facilities located in Philadelphia has not yet complied with the city’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for frontline workers.
But it currently has a staff vaccination rate of 94.8%, with 1.3% who are partially vaccinated, according to a local report. Philadelphia was among several cities and states to adopt their own mandates ahead of a federal rule for healthcare workers. Providers faced fines of up to $2,000 per incident for not complying with the mandate.
The facility in question is the Delaware Valley Veterans Home, a 171-bed nursing home operated by the Pennsylvania Department of Veterans Affairs. The only holdup stems from a state issue as the facility awaits a formal vaccine exemption process to be put in place to account for vaccinated staff.
“We were told that on-site management is eager to implement this mandate, but because it’s a state VA facility, they’re waiting on sign-off from the state. They have shown us the requests to implement the mandate and we’re confident that they’re working toward that resolution,” said James Garrow, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
As of Friday, a total of 8,460 of 9,313 nursing home workers, or 90.8%, were fully vaccinated and an additional 4.8% had had at least one dose. Fewer than 200 workers either quit or were fired for not getting the COVID-19 vaccine, while 286 received religious or medical exemptions.
