, with the first 25 states falling under the Feb. 28 deadline because they did not challenge the requirement in court. Health care workers in the following 24 states have until March 15 to be fully vaccinated: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Workers in these states must also receive their first or primary shots by Feb. 14, according to the CMS. Texas, on the other hand, will operate on its own timeline. Officials in this state challenged the CMS mandate on their own in a separate lawsuit that was just dismissed by a federal district court on Jan. 19, according to the SHRM. The CMS is giving affected health care workers in Texas until Feb.
" after the Supreme Court chose to uphold the requirement nationwide. "But if it happened sooner, we wouldn't have gone through the surge, and a lot more people would be alive today," he added.