President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced new efforts to use federal funding and enforcement powers to increase vaccination rates among nursing home staff and to stop governors from blocking mask mandates in schools. The administration said nursing homes must vaccinate their staffs against COVID-19 if they want to continue receiving federal funding. Biden noted the vaccination rate among nursing home workers lags the national vaccination rate. About 38% of nursing home staff are not vaccinated, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. About 82% of residents are. Many of the recent outbreaks in facilities, driven by the emergence of the highly contagious delta variant, are in facilities located in areas that have low staff vaccination rates, according to CMS. Infections have risen from a low of 319 cases on June 27 to 2,696 cases on August 8. Medicaid is the primary payer for nursing home care. In addition, Biden directed his education secretary to use "all oversight authority and legal action" against governors who are preventing schools from requiring students to wear masks. "We’re not going to sit by as governors try to block and intimidate educators protecting our children," Biden said.