‘Highly recommended but voluntary’: DeKalb County officials weigh in on COVID-19 vaccines for nursing home staff

Although DeKalb County officials said they are monitoring the spread of COVID-19 in the county’s nursing home as best they can, it is not required for nursing home staff to receive the vaccine.

DeKalb County interim Administrator Gary Hanson said there are some legal issues in considering whether any public body or employer can require staff to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

“Certainly it’s our preference that we get as many people vaccinated as we can,” Hanson said. “But we understand there are also sometimes personal choices.”

Scott Gima, executive vice president and chief operating officer for Management Performance Associates, which helps run management for the DeKalb County Rehab and Nursing Center, said the policy is that it’s voluntary for nursing home staff to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine through a federal distribution partnership with CVS Pharmacy.

“Highly recommended, but it’s voluntary,” Gima said.

The recent comments came after Hanson gave an update on the COVID-19 outbreak within the county nursing home, which has been contained to one of its three buildings for now. The comments also come as first responders started getting the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine through the DeKalb County Health Department this week.

Gima said the reason why the vaccine is voluntary for staff is because it’s not being mandated by regulatory bodies that the nursing home has to respond to, such as Medicare, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Illinois Department of Public Health.

“Everything that’s coming from the feds or the state is just a recommendation, and it’s not a requirement,” Gima said. “Basically, this is uncharted territory and a new vaccine.”

As of Friday, the facility had reported 117 cases (66 in staff and 51 in residents) of COVID-19, the largest of any long-term care facility locally since the pandemic began, according to the local health department.

Gima said the nursing home at this time has 130 residents and somewhere between 150 and 200 employees. He said the majority of residents received the first dose of the vaccine, and he believes most staff received it as well, although probably not as high of a percentage as the residents who received it.

Despite some reported problems with community distribution elsewhere, Gima said vaccine distribution in the county nursing home “went off without a hitch.”

“I think it was a sigh of relief from everyone that we’re getting vaccinated,” Gima said. “So we’re just taking it one day at a time.”