As Omicron Spreads, Some Nursing Homes Struggle to Boost Residents

Medical experts say the government should do more to get booster shots into long-term care residents in New York.

At Sea Crest Nursing and Rehabilitation, a large nursing home that looks out on the Coney Island boardwalk, more than 100 residents have died of Covid-19 since the pandemic began.

Yet as a more contagious variant of the coronavirus surges to a new high in New York, the nursing home is struggling to provide what medical experts believe is one of the strongest forms of protection against this latest wave of the virus: a booster shot.

Of the 274 residents of the nursing home, only 52 — fewer than one in five — had received a booster, according to state data from this past week.