Pentagon officials say they still do not know the rate at which service members are refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine but admitted Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has a “concern” about the military’s participation in the voluntary program.
“Certainly it’s a concern of the secretary, but he’s also mindful that it’s a voluntary program,” DOD spokesman John Kirby told the Washington Examiner in the Pentagon briefing room.
The Defense Department again said it could not quantify the rate at which service members, including those deploying and performing critical national security tasks, are declining to be inoculated.
DOD cannot require the coronavirus vaccine until it is fully FDA approved. The current voluntary program operates under an FDA emergency authorization.
Nonetheless, more than 1 million vaccination doses have been ordered and shipped to military bases worldwide.
Nearly 967,000 doses have been delivered to military treatment facilities, and 800,135 vaccinations have been administered, Kirby said.
Of the vaccinations given, roughly 589,000 were first doses, and 211,000 were second doses.
The use rate of 82% is an improvement from two weeks ago, when hundreds of thousands of the department’s doses went unused.
However, mystery still shrouds the rate at which service members are declining to be vaccinated, and Kirby declined to say if Austin has requested hard data for the rate at which members of the military are refusing the jab.
“We don’t have a good firm number on that,” the spokesman admitted. “There’s no central tracking system to keep track of those who are either refusing the vaccine, or, in some cases, deferring their decision on the vaccine.”
Kirby said that Austin is encouraging service members to read the CDC website, the Defense Department’s website, and consult their primary care physician.
The secretary himself was vaccinated to demonstrate the safety and effectiveness, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley recently participated in a virtual town hall for Blue Star families alongside first lady Jill Biden and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci.
As of Wednesday, more than 232,000 department employees, service members, and their families have been sickened by the coronavirus.
Among the active-duty force, more than 148,000 have been sickened, 1,359 remain hospitalized, and 21 service members have died.
Still, the education efforts are not reaching all service members.
“Everybody has a different health situation, and he respects that and wants them to talk to their doctors about this,” Kirby said.
