California requiring healthcare workers to get booster shots

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday said California will require healthcare workers to get booster shots against the coronavirus.

“With Omicron on the rise, we’re taking immediate actions to protect Californians and ensure our hospitals are prepared,” the Democratic governor said in a news release.

California follows New Mexico in the new mandate, his office said.

The most populous state already required all healthcare workers to be vaccinated by September, with exemptions for medical reasons or personal beliefs.

His office would not say when the new requirement would take effect or if there would be an option for frequent testing instead, promising more details during an event Wednesday.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

California is poised for a surge in new coronavirus infections as a far more contagious version of the disease spreads among holiday parties and family gatherings forced indoors by a series of winter storms.

But experts say the nation's most populous state is likely to avoid the worst scenario — spikes in hospitalizations and deaths — because most Californians have either been vaccinated or already been infected. That gives the state a higher level or protection against the omicron variant that, while not guaranteeing people won't get sick, means they are less likely to need to go to the hospital.

“It's a highly transmissible respiratory virus and people are going to get it. And they are going to get it every winter,” said Dr. Monica Gandhi, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of California, San Francisco. “We have to go toward measuring our true success with a disease, which is how we're doing with hospitalizations.”

California has fared far better than many other states so far,...