US defence chief, top generals to get jabs next week

US SECRETARY of Defence Chris Miller and his top generals will be vaccinated for Covid-19 by next week after the expected approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, Pentagon officials said on December 9.

Miller, deputy defence secretary David Norquist, Joint Chiefs chairman General Mark Milley and vice-chairman General John Hyten, and Joint Chiefs senior enlisted adviser Ramon Colon

Lopez will be first in line for jabs to protect the US military’s command structure, said Assistant Secretary of Defence for Health Affairs Thomas McCaffery.

The Pentagon will get an initial 44,000 doses of Pfizer’s treatment, which could gain final approval from the Food and Drug Administration as early as late on December 10, he said.

The final step will be a review scheduled for December 13 by the Advisory

Committee on Immunisation Practices of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Defence Health Agency director Lieutenant-General Ronald Place said: “We are confident within 24 to 48 hours from that advisory committee decision, we will actually have shots in arms.”

Besides the Pentagon leadership, the Defence Department’s priority recipients will be health care and support personnel at military hospitals and emergency services and public safety workers.

The first distribution will go to 16 bases, including one each in South Korea, Germany and Japan.

McCaffery said they plan for military leaders to get their injections “in a very public way” to encourage US defence personnel to trust the vaccine’s safety and follow suit.