WASHINGTON (AP) – Guantanamo Bay detainees can now begin receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, a senior defense official told the Associated Press on Monday after a plan to inoculate them was drawn up for to be outraged that many Americans were not eligible to receive the photos.
The new moment coincides with President Joe Biden’s deadline for states to make vaccines more available throughout the United States. Starting Monday, anyone 16 years of age and older qualifies to enroll and enter a virtual line to be vaccinated.
The defense official said that all 40 men detained at the Cuban Navy base will be offered vaccination to comply with legal requirements for the treatment of detainees and to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Strict quarantine procedures have already abruptly reduced grassroots activities and halted legal proceedings for detainees facing war crimes trials, including the men accused in the 9/11 attacks.
“Obviously, we do not want a COVID outbreak on a remote island with the challenges it would present,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the effort ahead of an official announcement.
The January announcement that the military intends to offer the prisoner vaccine has sparked intense criticism, especially among Republicans in Congress, at a time when COVID-19 vaccines were just being released to Guantanamo troops and civilians and were not widely available in Guantanamo Bay. United States.
Several Republican members of Congress supported legislation that would have blocked Guantanamo detainees from receiving the vaccine until all Americans had the opportunity to receive it.
House minority leader Kevin McCarthy criticized the decision on Twitter. “President Biden told us he would have a plan to defeat the virus on Day 1,” the California Republican said Jan. 30. “He never told us it would be the vaccination of terrorists before most Americans.”
Although the decision to vaccinate prisoners may still be controversial, a key difference is now that the vaccine is now more available, both at the grassroots and throughout the United States. Half of the adults in the country received at least one dose of the shot.
At Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, 56 percent of the total population of about 5,700 people, a mixture of military personnel, contractors and dependents, have been vaccinated, and the shot is available to any adult who wants it, Dawn Grimes said. a public business officer for the basic hospital.
There are about 1,500 people assigned to the working group that runs the detention center on the base. There were no known cases of COVID-19 among them or among the prisoners.
The medical staff has already discussed the vaccine with the prisoners. The military does not intend to reveal how many eventually choose to accept it, the official said, citing medical confidentiality regulations.
At least some of the men detained at the base may be skeptical about the vaccine, given their treatment over the years by the U.S. government, but others are eager to be inoculated and were disappointed when the initial effort was suspended, he said. Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at City University of New York who represents prisoners.
“Although the government has argued in court for years that detainees receive medical care comparable to soldiers at the base, the policy has defeated the first vaccination effort,” Kassem said. “I am relieved that the reality finally reaches the legal obligations in a small way.
The Biden administration announced in April that it could conduct a full review of the detention center’s operations with a view to finally closing the facility, which opened in January 2002 to detain people suspected of links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban after the 9/11 attacks. .
At its peak in 2003, the detention center at the naval base in the southeastern tip of Cuba held nearly 680 prisoners and widely condemned the treatment of men detained there, most without charge.
Its closure proved challenging as the US tried to detain and prosecute some prisoners, but Congress prevented the transfer of any detainee there to facilities in the country for any reason.
Among those still detained there is Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, who, along with four others, is facing trial on charges that include murder and terrorism following the 9/11 attacks. The long-blocked case remains in the preliminary stage and no hearings have been held for more than a year due to the pandemic.
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This story has been corrected to show that the vaccine in the US is now available to anyone 16 years of age and no older than 18 years.