Pentagon grapples with vaccine mandate
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is vowing he “won’t let grass grow under our feet” as the department begins to implement the new vaccine and testing directives. But Pentagon officials were scrambling at week’s end to figure out how to enact and enforce the changes across the vast military population and determine which National Guard and Reserve troops would be affected by the orders.
The Pentagon now has two separate missions involving President Joe Biden’s announcement Thursday aimed at increasing COVID-19 vaccines in the federal workforce. The Defense Department must develop plans to make the vaccine mandatory for the military and set up new requirements for federal workers who will have to either attest to a COVID-19 vaccination or face frequent testing and travel restrictions.
Austin said Friday that the department will move expeditiously but added that he can’t predict how long it will take. He said he plans to consult with medical professionals as well as military service leaders.
Any plan to make the vaccine mandatory will require a waiver signed by Biden because the Food and Drug Administration has not yet given the vaccine final, formal approval. According to federal law, the requirement to offer individuals a choice of accepting or rejecting use of an emergency use vaccine may only be waived by the president and “only if the president determines in writing that complying with such requirement is not in the interests of national security.”
Mandating the vaccine before FDA approval will likely trigger opposition from vaccine opponents and drag the military into political debates over what has become a highly divisive issue in the U.S.
Military commanders, however, have struggled to separate vaccinated recruits from unvaccinated recruits during early portions of basic training across the services to prevent infections.
So, for some, a mandate could make training and housing less complicated.
Military service members are already required to get as many as 17 different vaccines, depending on where they are based around the world. Some of the vaccines are specific to certain regions. Military officials have said the pace of vaccines has been growing across the force, with some units seeing nearly 100 percent of their members get shots.
According to the Pentagon, more than 1 million service members are fully vaccinated, and 233,000 have gotten at least one shot. There are roughly 2 million active-duty, Guard and Reserve troops.
A vaccine mandate will also raise questions about whether the military services will discharge troops who refuse the vaccine.
National Guard officials said initial guidance suggests that Guard troops who initially refuse the vaccine once it’s mandatory will receive counseling from medical personnel. If they still refuse, they would be ordered to take it, and failure to follow that order could result in administrative or punitive action.
While the number of COVID-19 deaths across the military has remained small — largely attributed to the age and health of the force — cases of the virus have been increasing.
As of this week, there have been more than 208,600 cases of COVID-19 among members of the U.S. military. Of those, more than 1,800 members have been hospitalized and 28 have died.