President Joe Biden will reportedly order all nursing homes to require their staff to be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus in order to keep receiving funds for the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Biden on Wednesday afternoon is expected to direct the Department of Health and Human Services to create the new mandate, administration officials told CNN.

‘As we see the spread of Delta and the threat of Covid cases, it is really especially important that we ensure that those caring for our most vulnerable are vaccinated,’ Carole Johnson, a senior official on the White House’s Covid-19 response team, told the news outlet.

Biden’s announcement would signal a continuation of his effort to get more Americans vaccinated. It would be the first time that he threatens to pull federal funding in order to push inoculation.

The requirement could become effective as soon as September.

Johnson said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will work with nursing homes, their unions and staff to boost vaccinations within their networks before the regulation goes into effect.

More than 15,000 nursing homes participate in Medicare and Medicaid. Roughly 1.3million people work in those nursing homes and 40% of staff are not vaccinated, CMS data shows.

‘We have seen tremendous progress with low Covid rates within the nursing home population and I think we’re seeing signs that it is starting to tip the other direction,’ CMS principal deputy administrator Jonathan Blum told CNN. ‘We don’t want to go backwards.’

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