Pentagon deploys troops for vaccine support
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon will deploy more than 1,100 troops to five vaccination centers in what will be the first wave of increased military support for the White House campaign to get more Americans inoculated against COVID-19.
President Joe Biden has called for setting up 100 mass vaccination centers around the country within a month. One of the five new military teams will go to a vaccination center opening in California. Other centers are expected to be announced soon.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has asked the Pentagon to supply as many as 10,000 service members to staff 100 centers. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approved the initial five teams, but others will be approved in separate tranches as FEMA identifies site locations.
Acting FEMA Administrator Robert Fenton told reporters that two vaccination sites that will be “predominantly” federally run will open in California on Feb. 16, one at California State University, Los Angeles, and the other in Oakland.
Military troops will staff one of the two California centers, FEMA and Pentagon officials said. Personnel from other parts of the federal government will be at the other one. More sites will open around the country as more doses of vaccine become available.
Each of the Pentagon’s five military teams includes 222 personnel, including 80 who will give the vaccines, as well as nurses and other support staff. The teams would be able to provide about 6,000 shots a day.
The five teams represent a growing use of the active duty military to a vaccination campaign that already involves nearly 100 National Guard teams in 29 states across the country. National Guard leaders told the Associated Press that they are now considering training additional Guard members to give shots, so that they can also expand vaccinations in more remote and rural portions of their states.
Gen. Dan Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said the Guard has the ability to field about 200 additional teams. Training other medical personnel to give the vaccination shots, he said, would potentially provide more.
“If we reach the point where we’ve fully implemented all of our folks who can (give shots), then they’re looking at potential training opportunities if we’re going to need more than that,” said Hokanson.
Pentagon officials have made it clear that they are being careful about tapping National Guard and Reserves, because in many cases those service members are already working in medical jobs in their civilian lives at local hospitals and medical centers. Hokanson noted that while the Guard could staff as many as 600 vaccine teams, he has to cut that number about in half because of those types of civilian job restrictions.
He said that so far Guard members are only operating in their own states, but could go to neighboring states if needed.
Alongside the troop deployment, Biden also invoked a Cold War-era law called the Defense Production Act to help bolster manufacturing of vaccines, athome COVID-19 testing kits and nitrile gloves used by health care workers and vaccinators. Referred to as the DPA, the law in essence allows the government to assign missions to private companies during national emergencies.
Tim Manning, the White House’s COVID-19 supply coordinator, said Friday the administration was looking to help drugmaker Pfizer clear a bottleneck around fill-and-finish capabilities with vaccine production by giving the drugmaker first priority to access needed supplies.