The U.S. Navy has not granted a single coronavirus vaccination religious exemption to date, a spokesperson for the service told the Washington Examiner on Thursday.
Each active-duty sailor must be vaccinated by Nov. 28 or apply for a medical or religious exemption. A person is not fully vaccinated until two weeks after their final dose, whether that’s a two-shot or single-shot vaccine, so that means the deadline is really 14 days earlier.
Any sailor who applies for an exemption before the deadline passes will not face consequences if the adjudication process extends past it, the spokesperson noted. Should a sailor be denied an exemption, there is also an appeals process.
Sailors who defy the mandate without an exemption will be “processed for administrative separation,” according to a memo from Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. William Lescher and Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. John Nowell. These sailors will be released with no lower than a general discharge under honorable conditions.
As of Oct. 20, 93% of active-duty sailors are fully immunized, and 98% have received at least one dose, according to data from the Navy. The percentage of vaccinated sailors experienced a marginal dip from the previous week resulting from the change in the total number of active-duty sailors, according to a spokesperson. The number of vaccinations among reserve sailors is lower, though they have an extra month before their Dec. 28 deadline arrives. Seventy-eight percent of reserve sailors are fully vaccinated, while 83% have received at least one dose.
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Each military branch has been tasked with setting its own deadlines following Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin’s directive and each has a separate exemption process.
The Marines, who have a vaccination deadline of Nov. 28, had also not granted any religious exemptions as of Tuesday, while an Army spokesperson told the Washington Examiner Thursday that it, too, has not granted any “permanent religious exemptions,” though it granted “one permanent medical exemption.” Active-duty soldiers have until Dec. 15 to get vaccinated.
