US prepares to mandate COVID jab for all active-duty military | Coronavirus pandemic News
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The Biden administration is preparing to require all members of the U.S. military to be vaccinated against COVID-19, while the U.S. plans to vaccinate its population against a new wave of more contagious coronavirus variants and hospitalizations.
President Joe Biden directed the Department of Defense last month to develop a plan to make vaccines mandatory for all troops, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin should announce the requirement as early as Friday.
Biden has already ordered all federal employees to be vaccinated or subjected to frequent tests and travel restrictions. So far, the Biden government has relied on troops to get vaccinated instead of ordering the gunshots.
“Today around 400 people will die of the Delta variant in this county,” said Biden on Friday in the White House.
“It’s a tragedy because virtually all of these deaths were preventable if people had been vaccinated,” Biden said.
According to the Pentagon, more than 1 million soldiers are fully vaccinated and more than 237,000 have received at least one vaccination. There are approximately two million active duty, guard and reserve forces.
Austin is expected to urge the president to use executive power to waive federal law that provides that individuals in the military have a choice if the vaccine is not fully licensed.
“The military is traveling to vulnerable populations around the world to best serve the United States,” said former Air Force Staff Sergeant Tes Sabine, who works as a radiology technician in an emergency room in New York State.
“We need healthy people in the military to be able to carry out missions, and if the COVID-19 vaccine achieves that, it will be very positive,” said Sabine.
According to former Army attorney Greg Rinckey, the Department of Defense is likely to encounter some resistance to the vaccine among the active forces.
Rinckey told The Associated Press that his law firm had received calls from hundreds of service members asking if they could take legal action if asked to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.
“A lot of US troops have reached out to us and said, ‘I don’t want an untested vaccine, I’m not sure it’s safe, and I don’t trust the government vaccine. What rights do I have? ‘”Said Rinckey.
The distrust among some service workers reflects the sentiments of the broader US public towards the COVID-19 vaccines, which were quickly approved for emergency use, but which many Americans have declined.
Private US employers have also begun to require their employees to be vaccinated. United Airlines Inc became the first U.S. airline to mandate vaccinations for all domestic employees on Friday, joining employers from Microsoft to Tyson Foods who have mandated vaccines.
The Biden administration is taking steps to require that almost all foreign visitors to the United States be vaccinated against the coronavirus, a White House official said.
All travelers to the United States, regardless of vaccination status, are currently required to demonstrate a negative COVID-19 test within three days of flying into the country.
Daily new COVID-19 cases have soared to a six-month high in the US, with more than 100,000 infections reported nationwide as the Delta variant devastated states with lower vaccination rates.
Seven US states with low vaccination rates – Florida, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi – account for half of the new cases and hospital admissions in the US in the past week, said Jeff Zients, COVID-19 coordinator for white Told reporters on August 5.
The vaccination rate has increased in recent weeks due to the spread of the Delta variant.
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