BERLIN—Frank Vogel, a 64-year-old local politician from the eastern German Erzgebirge region, has been scrambling to find ways to keep nursing homes open when a vaccine mandate for health care workers takes effect next month.
His region near the Czech border has one of the lowest vaccination rates in Germany. With only 57 percent of health care workers there having received two shots against the coronavirus, implementing the mandate would result in staff shortages that would force facilities to shut down.
