I know what you’re thinking because I thought the same when I read this story. Doesn’t the Pentagon routinely require troop vaccinations?
It does. But it can only order personnel to take a shot if that shot has been fully approved by the FDA for the general public. Neither Pfizer nor Moderna have received full approval; they have been granted emergency use permission to hasten their availability in the midst of a terrible crisis. That bureaucratic wrinkle means that the military’s hands are temporarily trapped, even though protection from COVID is a matter of basic readiness. Until the FDA gets full approval, the defense department is stuck flattering troops to get immunized instead of leading them there.
The rule limiting the Pentagon’s power to require vaccinations unless they are approved for public use was, I assume, intended to protect soldiers from being treated as medical guinea pigs for new pharmaceutical treatments by Uncle Sam. That’s a good rule in an abstract sense, but one that has led to an absurd result in the case of a product already dosed to nearly 50 million Americans on its way to delivery to most of the U.S. population by the end of the summer. No one is ‘experimenting’ with the military by giving them an mRNA vaccine at this point.
But rules are rules and vaccine skeptics within the ranks benefit. And as you might suspect, Refuseniks are young.
About a third of the troops on active duty or in the National Guard have refused to take the vaccinemilitary officials recently told Congress. In some places, such as Fort Bragg, NC, the country’s largest military installation, acceptance rates are below 50 percent …
While Pentagon officials say they are not collecting specific data on those who refuse the vaccine, there is widespread agreement that bounce rates are much higher among younger members, and enlisted personnel are more likely to say no than officersMilitary husbands seem to share that hesitation: In a December poll of 674 active family members led by Blue Star Families, a military advocacy group, 58 percent said they would not allow their children to receive the vaccine.
“I’d rather not be the one testing this vaccine,” [one airman] explained in an email. She also said that because vaccination access had become a campaign theme during the 2020 race for the White House, she was more skeptical, adding that some of her colleagues told her she would rather divorce from the military than take the vaccine when it became mandatory
Reports of aging vaccinations have been circulating within DOD for at least a month. The main reason younger soldiers are more likely to refuse than older ones, I assume, is the well-known fact that you’re less likely to have a case of COVID when you’re 25 than when you’re 65. If you are convinced that the vaccine itself is risky, the low chance of becoming seriously ill if you are infected will obviously affect your risk rate. Younger troops are also likely to spend more time online than older ones, exposing them to more anti-vax propaganda. (“Some of the concerns stem from misinformation rampant on Facebook and other social media, including the false rumor that the vaccine contains a microchip designed to control recipients, that it will permanently disable the body’s immune system, or that it is some form of government control. ”) And as a basic psychology, younger troops may enjoy an opportunity to rebel against the Pentagon’s authority over them more than the brass that usually wields that authority, who will do.
“What we’re seeing now is similar to what we’re seeing across the United States in that there is … a higher percentage of older people who choose to get the vaccine, and it declines with age,” an Air Force general told the Military Times earlier this month. He is right. According to the latest poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 77 percent of Americans 65 or older have been given a chance or plan to do so as soon as possible. But only 41 percent of Americans ages 18-29 say the same.
Some of the hesitation in vaccinating may be military-specific, such as memories of side effects caused by the anthrax vaccine in the late 1990s. But much of it can be explained by simple demographics. If it is true that the military is more Republican than the general population, then it makes sense that it is also more skeptical about getting the COVID vaccine. Fully 75 percent of Democrats in the general population have either gotten their first chance or will do so ASAP, according to the KFF poll mentioned above, but only 41 percent of Republicans will. The same poll shows that 41 percent of black Americans have been given a chance or plan to do so as soon as possible, versus 61 percent of whites, and that blacks are overrepresented in the military relative to their share of the total US population.
But if it is true that the military’s reluctance to vaccinate is usually just a reflection of that of the general public, then there is room for optimism. Because the public is warming up to the idea of getting vaccinated:
As efforts to distribute COVID-19 vaccinations continue in the United States, the latest KFF COVID-19 vaccine monitor reports that a majority (55%) of American adults now say they received at least one dose of the vaccine (18%) or that they will get it as soon as possible (37%), up from 47% in January and 34 % in DecemberThe proportion who want to ‘wait and see’ how the vaccine works for others before being vaccinated themselves has fallen from 31% in January to 22% in February, with a stubborn one in five saying they will receive the vaccine ‘only if necessary for work, school or other activities ”(7%) or will“ definitely not ”be vaccinated (15%).
Inevitably, as the number of vaccinations rises, some in the “wait-and-see” crowd will conclude that it must be safe, otherwise reports of serious side effects would be widespread. The advent of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine may also soften opposition:
The difficulty for the Pentagon to buy vaccine fences is that it’s a tightly hierarchical organization, which is great if you have the power to mandate vaccinations, but potentially counterproductive if you’re forced to convince people. One researcher pointed out to the Times that the most important factor in convincing someone to get the shot is whether they know someone personally who received the shot themselves, proving that trust – not pressure from authorities – is the way to go. KFF’s records also confirm that:
The copper can only do what it can, which is why SecDef Lloyd Austin released the video below a few days ago. But I wonder if it wouldn’t be more effective for COs to try to identify the more popular members of their units and do what they can through friendly persuasion to convince those soldiers to take the plunge. Setting the example of someone loved and trusted by many of his comrades can have a “viral” effect on those around him in terms of their willingness to get vaccinated. That plus an educational campaign on the safety of the vaccine is arguably the best the Pentagon can do until the FDA finally gives full approval of the shot, after which it can be ordered to be stabbed.