The U.S. Marine Corps has not approved any religious exemptions for troops who say getting the COVID-19 vaccination would violate their religious beliefs.
The military branch’s vaccination deadline is Nov. 28 for active-duty forces, while a Marine Corps spokesperson told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday that as of Oct. 20, the Marines had not exempted anybody on religious grounds.
The spokesperson declined to provide information on how many exemptions had been requested, saying that data will not be released until around the time of the deadline.
As of Oct. 20, 83% of the Marine Corps’ active forces were fully vaccinated, and the percentage rises to 92% when factoring in partial vaccinations, according to Military.com. Troops need to receive their final shot by Nov. 14 because each military branch does not consider someone to be fully vaccinated until two weeks after receiving it. At this point, any still-unvaccinated Marine would have to receive the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine in order to be in compliance with the mandate before the deadline.
Marines who refuse to receive the vaccine but are not granted a religious or medical exemption “shall be processed for administrative separation,” the service branch wrote in a statement on Monday.
Troops are only considered to have “refused the vaccine” once any administrative, religious, or medical exemptions have been considered and decided, they said.
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Those who refuse to get vaccinated without exemption are not allowed to reenlist or execute orders, and they will not be eligible for separation pay.
Unvaccinated troops may be reassigned because “a Marine who has not been fully vaccinated is not considered worldwide deployable,” according to the statement.
