Operators hope that planned booster shots, distributed through a streamlined process, will help protect the skilled nursing community against the “twice as transmissible” delta variant, a phrase used by President Joe Biden in a press briefing Wednesday.

The Biden administration announced plans to deliver COVID-19 booster shots directly to long-term care residents and staff eight months after their second shot, as part of a national effort to curb the surging and more contagious delta variant.

Starting Sept. 20, all Americans that received the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine will be able to get their booster shot, U.S. health officials said, adding that more data was needed before approving additional shots of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the Associated Press reported.

Annaliese Impink, executive vice president of compliance, ethics and customer experience at Atlanta, Ga.-based SavaSeniorCare, said the boosters, or third shots for frail and immunocompromised people, will help with vaccination rates among staff.

Skilled Nursing News spoke with Impink prior to the federal announcement to withhold Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement if staff are not vaccinated.

“I think it will help us with our education of those individuals around the importance of this third shot and for those individuals that have not gotten any shots, you use the information that’s out there — they can see that this variant is really wreaking havoc across the country,” said Impink. “Not only is the first and second dose important, but the third dose is important [too]. We’ll use that for those folks, to try to encourage them to get that series of vaccines.”

The decision was made as an increasing amount of studies indicated the vaccines are losing effectiveness against the delta variant, according to Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the AP reported.

Vaccine effectiveness against infection in nursing homes dropped from 75% pre-delta to 53%, according to the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and CDC advisory panel are still evaluating the safety and effectiveness of a third dose, the AP reported.

Just days prior to the announcement, the administration’s top health officials said it was unclear when the wider population would need booster shots — however data collected by the CDC helped convince officials of the need for boosters, according to a Politico report.

Nursing homes saw 2,059 new resident cases the last week of July, according to data published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS); new staff cases were much higher for the same week at 3,265.

The delta variant has been behind 80% to 87% of all COVID cases in the U.S. during the last two months of July, according to data reported by the CDC.

About 82.4% of residents and 60% of staff per facility are vaccinated, CMS reported. Highly vaccinated nursing home staff had at least 30% less COVID-19 cases among long-term care facilities, Biden said during his Wednesday address.

Aging service associations applauded the move to start booster shots and put the nursing home community first.

“Nursing homes and assisted living communities care for our nation’s most vulnerable when it comes to this virus, so they and their caregivers must be prioritized and have efficient access to the vaccines,” said Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL).

The organization represents more than 14,000 non-profit and proprietary skilled nursing facilities, assisted living facilities, sub-acute centers and homes for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Added Parkinson: “We will continue to engage with public health officials to help advise and hopefully streamline the process for administering booster shots considering the diversity of the long term care profession. In the meantime, we must remain vigilant, especially in the face of delta, and continue to promote uptake among currently unvaccinated staff and residents.”