A senior military official said Wednesday that a third of members of the service refused to receive the coronavirus vaccine.
During a hearing of the Chamber on the response of the armed forces to COVID-19, ranking member of the Committee on Armed Services Rep. Mike Rogers
Michael (Mike) Dennis Rogers Overnight Defense: One-third of service members refuse Biden coronavirus vaccine to take executive action in response to Solar Winds hack US and Japan reach a cost-sharing agreement DOD says nearly a third of service members refuse COVID-19 vaccine Overnight Defense: Pentagon, Congress appoints group members to rename Confederate bases | The military approves 20 more coronavirus vaccination teams (R-Ala.) He asked General Jeff Taliaferro, deputy director of operations, what percentage of service members refused to receive the vaccine.
“I think our initial point – and this is, of course, very early data – is that acceptance rates are somewhere in the two-thirds range and, of course, vary by different groups,” Taliaferro said.
Rogers followed up by asking if members of the service who were not vaccinated were implementable.
Taliaferro said the members of the non-immunized service are implementable, saying that the “services and commands” that have been set up in the last year have allowed the Armed Forces to operate in a “COVID environment”.
General Steven Nordhaus confirmed at the same meeting that vaccinations were voluntary for military members.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in January called on the Department of Defense (DoD) to help distribute and administer coronavirus vaccines at FEMA locations, with up to 3,700 soldiers waiting to help with immunizations.
However, the DoD has not yet revealed how many members of the service have been vaccinated. In early February, the Military Times reported that the DoD had established a policy of not reporting branch affiliations to those who received the vaccine.
Pentagon officials had previously insisted he did not know how many members of the service refused to receive the vaccine because he did not have a system for tracking this information because the program was voluntary.
“It’s not the kind of work we’re doing here [the office of the secretary of Defense] has a database from which we can draw. That’s not the case right now, “Kirby told reporters earlier this month.
The DoD also made a policy of not reporting vaccine branch affiliations to those who received the vaccine, the Military Times reported in early February.
Kirby later dismissed allegations that officials were hiding information, saying again that the Department of Defense did not have a centralized system to track how many members of the service refused the vaccine.
“We do not have a system in each of the services to specifically track data on those people who, for any reason, refuse or postpone the vaccine.”
He said that officials at the Chamber’s hearing cite extensive data on vaccine acceptance rates that “mirror” the trends of American society and that officials went on to say that there is no data that they are specifically following.
He also insisted that the Pentagon makes no attempt to hide information about the number of soldiers who decide not to get vaccinated.
“Nobody hides data,” Kirby said. “There would be no reason to hide the data when we can tell you for sure how many people receive the vaccines.”
Ellen Mitchell contributed
– Updated at 18:01