WASHINGTON (AP) – With thousands of members, members of the US service refuse or give up the COVID-19 vaccine as frustrated commanders struggle to dispel rumors on the internet and find the right tone to persuade soldiers to fire.
Some military units see that only a third agree with the vaccine. Military leaders seeking answers believe they have identified a compelling potential: an imminent deployment. Sailors on ships from ships that went to sea last week, for example, chose to take the hit at rates of over 80% to 90%.
Air Force General Jeff Taliaferro, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress on Wednesday that “very early data” suggests that only two-thirds of the service members who offered the vaccine accepted.
This is higher than the rate for the general population, which a recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation estimated at about 50%. But the significant number of forces lowering the vaccine is particularly worrying, as troops often live, work and fight closely in environments where social distancing and wearing masks are sometimes difficult.
Military resistance also comes as troops deploy to administer gunfire at vaccination centers across the country and while leaders look to American forces to set an example for the nation.
“We are still struggling with the messages and how we influence people to opt for the vaccine,” Brig said. Gender. Edward Bailey, Army Forces Command surgeon. He said that in some units only 30% agreed to take the vaccine, while others are between 50% and 70%. The command of the forces supervises the major units of the army, comprising approximately 750,000 army, reserve and national guard soldiers at 15 bases.
At Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where several thousand soldiers are preparing for future deployments, the vaccine acceptance rate is about 60 percent, Bailey said. “This is not as big as we would expect for front-line staff,” he said.
Bailey heard all the excuses.
“I think the funniest thing I heard was, ‘The military always tells me what to do, they gave me a choice, so I said no,'” he said.
Service leaders campaigned vigorously for the vaccine. They organized town halls, wrote messages to the force, distributed scientific data, posted videos and even posted photos of vaccinated leaders.
For weeks, the Pentagon has insisted it does not know how many troops refuse the vaccine. On Wednesday, they provided some details about their early dates.
Individual military service officials, however, said in interviews with The Associated Press that rejection rates vary widely, depending on the age, unit, location, service membership and other intangibles of a service member.
Variations make it harder for leaders to identify which vaccine arguments are most compelling. The administration for food and medicine has allowed the emergency use of the vaccine, so it is voluntary. But Department of Defense officials say they hope it can change soon.
“We can’t make this mandatory yet,” Vice Admiral Andrew Lewis, commander of the Navy’s second fleet, said last week. “I can tell you that we will probably make it mandatory as soon as possible, just like we do with the flu vaccine.”
About 40 Marines recently gathered in a California conference room for an information session with medical staff. An officer, who was not allowed to discuss private conversations in public and spoke on condition of anonymity, said Marines are more comfortable and ask questions about the vaccine in smaller groups.
The officer said a Marine, citing a widespread conspiracy theory, said, “I heard this is actually a tracking device.” The medical staff, the officer said, quickly rejected this theory and pointed to the Navy’s cell phone, noting that it was an effective tracker.
Other common questions revolved around possible side effects or health problems, including for pregnant women. Army, Navy and Air Force officials say they hear the same.
The Navy Corps is a relatively small service, and the troops are generally younger. Similar to the general population, younger members of the services are more likely to decay or ask to wait. In many cases, military commanders said, younger troops say they had the coronavirus or knew others who had it and concluded it was not bad.
“What I don’t see is that 20-year-olds who got very sick, were hospitalized or died, or people who look fine, but then it turns out they developed lung and heart abnormalities,” Bailey said. .
One ray of hope was implementation.
Lewis, based in Norfolk, Virginia, said last week that sailors aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, which operates in the Atlantic, had agreed to get the shot at about 80 percent. The sailors on the USS Iwo Jima and Marines from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is also underway, had rates of over 90%.
Bailey said the military sees opportunities to reduce the two-week quarantine period for units operating in Europe if service members are largely vaccinated and if the host nation agrees. The US military could reduce the quarantine time to five days if 70% of the unit is vaccinated and this incentive could work, he said.
Acceptance numbers are falling among those not taking place, military officials said.
General James McConville, the army’s chief of staff, used his own experience to encourage troops to be vaccinated. “When they asked me how I felt, I said it was much less painful than some of the meetings I go to at the Pentagon.”
Col. Jody Dugai, commander of the Bayne-Jones Army Community Hospital in Fort Polk, Louisiana, said that so far team-level talks with eight to 10 colleagues have been successful and that more information is helping.
At the Fort Polk Joint Training Center, Brig. Gender. David Doyle, he has a double challenge. As a base commander, he must convince the nearly 7,500 soldiers at the base to get the shot and must ensure that the thousands of soldiers entering and leaving the bicycle for training exercises are safe.
Doyle said his base’s acceptance rate is between 30% and 40% and that younger troops are often the ones to decline.
“They told me they didn’t trust the vaccine very much because I think it was done too quickly,” he said. Senior health officials have certified the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine.
Doyle said his comrades often seem more influential than leaders in convincing troops – an echoed sentiment by Bailey, an Army Forces Command surgeon.
“We’re trying to figure out who the influencers are,” Bailey said. “Is he a team leader or a platoon sergeant in the army?” I think it probably is. Someone who is more than their age and interacts more with them regularly than the general officer who takes his picture and says, “I took the shot.” ”
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AP Security writer Robert Burns contributed to this report.