Nearly 40 percent of U.S. Marines refuse vaccinations against COVID-19, according to a new report.
About 75,500 Marines have received vaccinations, CNN reported Friday. But 48,000 other Marines rejected the shots. That means that of all Marines who have fired so far, 38.9 percent say no.
Another 102,000 Marines have not yet received any vaccines.
These statistics are even grimmer than reports from February suggesting that a total of about a third of military personnel are refusing to be vaccinated.
At the time, Air Force Major General Jeff Taliaferro, the Joint Staff’s deputy director of operations, told a conference panel that soldiers need education “to help them understand the benefits” of the vaccine.
According to Military.com, there were 273,503 cases of COVID-19 within the Department of Defense on April 9.
Part of the reason the drop rates are so high among service workers is that vaccinations for COVID-19 are not yet mandatory, and those who refuse the vaccine can still be deployed.
“We have already demonstrated over the past year that we are fully capable of operating in a COVID environment,” Taliaferro said in February.
In a statement to CNN, Marine Corps spokeswoman Colonel Kelly Frushour said they focused on “building confidence in vaccines” among the workforce.
“We fully understand that the wide acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine provides us with the best way to beat the pandemic.”
