California will soon require healthcare workers in the state to receive a COVID-19 booster shot, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced via a Tuesday evening tweet.
“With omicron on the rise, we’re taking immediate actions to protect Californians and ensure our hospitals are prepared,” the governor wrote on Twitter.
Newsom said he would be sharing more details on the upcoming booster policy alongside other statewide COVID-19 protections during a Wednesday press event.
The decision marks California as the second state to require its healthcare workers receive a booster after New Mexico, which announced earlier this month a Jan. 17, 2022, deadline for the additional shot.
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Healthcare workers in California have had a full COVID-19 vaccination requirement in place since Sept. 30. As of Tuesday evening, the state is facing a seven-day average of 5,289 new cases per day, 3,852 COVID-19 hospitalizations and 966 COVID-19 patients currently in an ICU, according to its department of public health.
Newsom’s announcement comes as public health departments and hospitals around the country are warning of a new spike in COVID-19 cases driven by the omicron variant.
Just yesterday, President Joe Biden unveiled new testing, vaccination and hospital capacity measures to address the rising case counts. Although several of those actions won’t bear fruit until after the holiday season, he urged Americans to “be concerned about omicron but not panicked” and for everyone to seek out vaccines or boosters for protection.
“We all heard what President Biden said [Tuesday] about what’s happening across the country, what’s happening around the rest of the world, with the omicron variant,” Newsom said in a video published to Twitter. “That’s not dissimilar to what’s happening here in the state of California. As a consequence, we’re stepping up our efforts to get people vaccinated but also get people boosted.”
Government-enforced COVID-19 vaccination requirements have varied across the country. Although state-level mandates have generally held firm where implemented, nationwide requirements pushed by the Biden administration have so far faced a rocky road in the courts following pushback from right-leaning and rural states.