Senior Airman Kara Sweeney, 911th Aeromedical Staging Sqadron aeromedical technician, administers an influenza vaccination to Tech. Sgt. Richard Kaulfers, 911th Airlift Wing broadcast journalist,

Senior Airman Kara Sweeney, 911th Aeromedical Staging Sqadron aeromedical technician, administers an influenza vaccination to Tech. Sgt. Richard Kaulfers, 911th Airlift Wing broadcast journalist, (U.S. Air Force photo by Joshua J. Seybert)

US Military Starts Vaccinating Troops, Behind Russia and China

DOD has picked 16 sites for a “controlled pilot” COVID vaccination program.

The Pentagon expects to distribute 44,000 doses of covid-19 vaccine among military personnel and retirees against COVID as early as next week at 16 sites in what officials called a “controlled pilot.” 

Initial doses of the Pfizer vaccine will go to what officials described as a “limited, limited'' number of senior military officials and officers, including the Defense Secretary and Deputy Defense Secretary, the Chairmen and Vice Chairman of the Joints Chief and some others. But the bulk of the initial doses will go to the military healthcare workforce. 

The doses will cover only a small fraction of what's needed to vaccinate everyone in DoD care, including the one million active duty personnel and more than nine million benefits-receiving veterans. 

A slide distributed by the Defense Department on Wednesday showing the initial phases for vaccine distribution among the DoD.

Meanwhile, Russia and China have begun to vaccinate their entire active duty force with their own versions of a vaccine — ones that did not go through rigorous FDA evaluations.

Officials could not say when they expect to have vaccinated the entire force. A chart distributed to media shows that critical national capabilities and personnel expected to deploy outside of the United States are also part of “Phase 1” but not the initial 44,000 doses.

“It’s going to be contingent on how much vaccine, what different types of vaccine we get over a period of time that we would be able to tell you, based upon our schema, we expect to be able to do X hundreds of thousands by the end of January versus February. So it's hard to give you a timeline now with so many questions to be determined in terms of which vaccine and how much we get and when we get it,” said Thomas McCaffery, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs.

“For us, the important thing is we’ve developed a planned program for dissemination. As we validate it in these initial 16 sites, we are confident we will be able to use our plan to very quickly [disseminate vaccine]” said McCaffery. Some 13 of the initial 16 sites will be located in the United States, per the illustration below. 

A slide distributed by the Defense Department on Wednesday showing the initial locations for vaccine distribution.

One researcher said that full vaccination might not occur until next spring, based on expected availability to the general U.S. population. “March, April is where the general population,” will be able to access the vaccine Tinglong Dai, an associate professor of operations management and business analytics at Johns Hopkins told Defense One. “That’s probably the point where we start distributing the vaccine to wider society including the military.” 

In contrast, Russian media reported this month that the country has already vaccinated some 400,000 military personnel. China approved the use of an experimental vaccine for use in the military in June. 

Neither of these vaccines went through an evaluation process as rigorous as the FDA’s so there are some questions about the efficacy and safety of each. 

Chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman downplayed how the small vaccination numbers among the U.S. military would affect readiness. “We’ve been relatively fortunate. A large number of our forces are in age criteria, health status, where we’ve fared better than others,” he said. “We’re confident, a month, two months, three months, four months, we’re going to be able to move forward with all the DoD missions we’ve been entrusted with, the way we have over the last year in the face of Covid.” 

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.