The Pentagon has approved another 20 military teams, a total of 4,700 members of the service, to help the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administer COVID-19 vaccines across the country.
After the approval last week of five such teams, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin
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The 20 will be divided into 10 teams of 222 staff that support mega-vaccination sites and 10 teams of 139 staff that help the youngest.
All teams, mostly composed of active forces, will be sent “as requirements evolve”.
The Pentagon announced last week that it has authorized 1,100 active duty members to help FEMA in five state vaccination points, a response to the agency’s request to the Department of Defense in late January to help with 100 million people in the administration. Biden vaccinated in the first 100-day goal.
Of the top five approved teams, only one was announced and deployed, a team from Fort Carson, Col., that arrived in Los Angeles to support a mega-vaccination hub. Kirby said the team expects it to work by Monday.
He added that the Pentagon will soon have more information about where the other four teams will be sent, but that it is a complicated process that requires coordination with local and state authorities.
“We don’t want to move too fast to overwhelm the process or the system,” Kirby said.
The Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, of which FEMA is a part, have discussed in the past few weeks how the military can help the agency with President Biden
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Possible solutions include sending up to 100 active force and national guard teams – a total of 10,000 soldiers – to the vaccination sites.