North Carolina, Washington bases among first military sites to get COVID vaccine
The Defense Department announced Wednesday it has selected sites at Fort Bragg, Joint Base Lewis-McChord and Keesler Air Force Base for its initial distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine among military personnel.
Those sites and more than a dozen others will distribute the Pentagon’s initial allotment of about 44,000 doses of Pfizer’s vaccine to military personnel once the Food and Drug Administration approves an emergency use authorization, which is expected in the next several days, Defense Health Agency Director Army Lt. Gen. Ronald Place told reporters at the Pentagon.
Health care workers and public safety personnel at each of the initial locations will get first priority to take a vaccine, Place said.
The initial locations were selected by each military branch for several reasons, including their ability to store the vaccines and local medical facility capacity, Place said.
The Pfizer vaccine requires two doses to be fully effective and must be stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius.
The sites were selected “based on the capability to have ultra cold storage there,” Place said. “It’s because it’s high on the Army’s priority list, each of the services sent them forward. It’s because they have way more than 1,000 of the first tier, which by that we mean the military police, the security forces, the ambulance crews, the firefighters, the emergency department staff and ICU staff. So even within the health care, we are looking at very specific parts of the health care that are at highest risk.”
The vaccines will be distributed in packages of 975 doses each, and each base will have to show it has successfully distributed the first round before it receives the second dose, Place said. The doses will be limited to personnel affiliated with the base and not for outside regional distribution, Place said.
While the vaccine is still in emergency use authorization status, the shots will not be mandatory, said Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Thomas McCaffery. The vaccines will be encouraged, but the military will continue to employ the social distancing, movement restrictions and mask-wearing policies it has relied on so far during the pandemic.
If the vaccines become fully licensed, the Pentagon may make the vaccine mandatory for its forces, McCaffrey said.
The Pentagon is anticipating it will get follow-on allotments of both the Pfizer vaccine and others, such as Moderna’s vaccine, if they are also approved by the FDA.
Along with health care workers, the Defense Department will prioritize a small batch of vaccines for the Pentagon’s senior leadership, including acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark Milley and the heads of each military service. It will then be prioritized for service members preparing to deploy overseas and those in mission critical roles, such as operating the nation’s nuclear missile arsenal.
The initial locations include:
Madigan Army Medical Center, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, WA
Womack Army Medical Center, Fort Bragg, NC
Navy Branch Health Clinic, Naval Air Station, Jacksonville, FL
Base Alameda Health Services (clinic), U.S. Coast Guard Base, Alameda, CA
Naval Medical Center, San Diego, CA (will distribute to Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton)
Naval Hospital Pensacola, Pensacola, FL (which will distribute vaccines to the Armed Forces Retirement Home, Gulfport MS, to be administered by Keesler Air Force base, MS.)
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, MD
Portsmouth Naval Medical Center, Portsmouth, VA
Indiana National Guard, Franklin, IN
New York National Guard Medical Command, Watervliet, NY
Tripler Army Medical Center, Honolulu, HI
Allgood Army Community Hospital, Camp Humphreys, Korea
Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany
Kadena Medical Facility, Kadena AB, Japan
Darnall Army Medical Center, Fort Hood, TX
Willford Hall, Joint Base San Antonio, TX
This story was originally published December 9, 2020 at 9:58 AM with the headline "North Carolina, Washington bases among first military sites to get COVID vaccine."
