Travis Boldt News Today

This story was first published by The Texas Tribune. Houston home health caregiver Rachel Fuentes is struggling between her need to stay employed and her fear of the COVID-19 vaccine. Fuentes, 43, worries that her employer will make vaccinations mandatory, or that she won’t find clients who will let her care for them if she’s unvaccinated. One of her co-workers, a 33-year-old, is already facing that reality: The assisted living facility where...

          “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. Health care is all I’ve known,” said the 33-year-old, who asked to remain anonymous because she fears backlash from people who know her and because she hasn’t told the older man she cares for that she will probably have to stop caring for him.             Like other home health agencies across the state, the women’s employers at Encore Caregivers in Houston are trying to navigate a growing dilemma: Their clie...

<figcaption> Houston health care worker Rachel Fuentes says she will wait to get the vaccine “as long as I can push it off.” <cite>Credit: Shelby Tauber for The Texas Tribune</cite> </figcaption>

Older and disabled Texans are demanding home caregivers be vaccinated for COVID-19. But many workers don’t want it.