Staggering Number of US Troops Have Yet to Comply with Vaccine Mandate
Around the nation, there are a vast number of Americans who are uneasy about the idea of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, and this has been true from the very advent of the pandemic itself.
The United States had already played host to a rather robust anti-vax movement when COVID-19 reared its ugly head nearly two years ago. Those who generally oppose these inoculations often cite concerns over the ingredients use in the jabs, the way in which they are produced, or their general safety as a reason to abstain.
The speed at which the coronavirus vaccines were developed has also played a role for many.
Now, as federal vaccine mandates roll out across the country, there are many who are simply refusing to comply, and this could lead to some shortcomings in the realm of national security if we’re not careful.
Hundreds of thousands of U.S. service members remain unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated against the coronavirus as the Pentagon’s first compliance deadlines near, with lopsided rates across the individual services and a spike in deaths among military reservists illustrating how political division over the shots has seeped into a nonpartisan force with unambiguous orders.
And the rate of vaccination was varied among the different branches.
Overall, the military’s vaccination rate has climbed since August, when Defense Department leaders, acting on a directive from President Joe Biden, informed the nation’s 2.1 million troops that immunization would become mandatory, exemptions would be rare and those who refuse would be punished. Yet troops’ response has been scattershot, according to data assessed by The Washington Post.
For instance, 90 percent of the active-duty Navy is fully vaccinated, whereas just 72 percent of the Marine Corps is, the data show, even though both services share a Nov. 28 deadline. In the Air Force, more than 60,000 personnel have just three weeks to meet the Defense Department’s most ambitious deadline.
Fears of losing a vast swath of the military to these arbitrary mandates is frightful, certainly, and mirrors concerns in the city of Seattle, where a worrisome percentage of their already-depleted police force could be out of a job in the coming weeks due to their personal decision to remain unvaccinated.