The president of the Kansas Board of Regents offered recommendations Friday to state universities receiving federal funding that must comply with a U.S. government mandate on COVID-19 vaccination of government contractors, including grant recipients, and adhere to a Kansas law withholding state funding from universities imposing inoculation directives.

Blake Flanders, who serves as president of the board responsible for public universities, community colleges and technical colleges, said each institution should consider implementing a process to comply with federal directives covering COVID-19 vaccines for contractor employees. In addition, the federal order would require masking and physical distancing in contractor workplaces, including visitors and students, in accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

Officials at the University of Kansas, Kansas State University and Wichita State University, which receive millions of dollars annually in federal financial support, responded by adopting vaccination mandates covering all employees. All three universities pledged to consider request for medical or religious exemptions.

President Joe Biden issued the executive order in September requiring all covered employees to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19. He adopted a limited exemption if an employee was legally entitled to an accommodation. For existing contracts, covered contractor employees must be fully vaccinated no later than Dec. 8.

Kansas officials said Friday the state is adopting federal guidelines for newly approved booster shots of COVID-19 vaccines.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late Thursday authorized booster shots made by Moderna and Johnson and Johnson, along with a mix-and-match approach. The agency already had signed off on booster shots of the Pfizer vaccine.

“Starting today, over 2,000 COVID-19 vaccine providers across Kansas stand ready to provide a free booster dose for Moderna, Pfizer or Johnson and Johnson vaccine to anyone who is eligible,” said Lee Norman, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. “But this isn’t just a question of access. In every community in our state, we need to be talking to our family, our friends, and our neighbors about the need to get this safe and effective vaccine.”

CDC data shows 64.7% of Kansas adults are fully vaccinated, below the national average of 68.8%.

When the delta variant arrived this summer, COVID-19 hospitalizations in Kansas skyrocketed. In just a few short months, hospitals went from serving about 100 coronavirus inpatients a day to treating 800 at a time.

But, a month ago, hospitalizations leveled off and finally started sliding slightly downward.

The state remains in a bad place, just better off than where it seemed headed.

“The fact that we still have so many ICUs full is very concerning,” said Marci Nielsen, chief advisor to Governor Laura Kelly on the state’s pandemic response. “Health care workers are exhausted and burned out.”

They spend hours just finding beds for patients. Intensive care units are so taxed with patients in respiratory distress, that it delays medical treatment for others who need it badly, too. The University of Kansas Health System says about one in 10 of its respiratory therapists quit within the past month.

TOPEKA — Sheena Mooney has spent the past year without a job or a safety net, living in her orange Nissan Xterra in a trailer park a few miles from Washburn.

Mooney lost her job at Frito-Lay in March 2020, a job she enjoyed, fell behind on her rent and was evicted that August. She applied for unemployment but did not qualify, and her eviction was subsequently approved between May 26, 2020, when the state’s eviction moratorium expired, and Aug. 17, 2020, when Gov. Laura Kelly’s new order went into effect.

“I don’t like telling people my business, you know. This was something that needed to be heard,” Mooney said. “How did this happen? How was I able to fall through the cracks and get no help?”