Mr. Lloyd Austin, who is the Defense Secretary, reveals that those from the US military will have to get vaccinated for COVID-19. They won’t have too much to wait, either – a little more than a month. Until September 15, these people will have to get vaccinated, according to CNET.com.
Austin is willing to seek the president’s approval for making the vaccination mandatory. If vaccines won’t become mandatory until mid-September, there’s also the goal to implement the rule sooner if a vaccine gets full approval from the FDA (Food and Drug Administration).
The President had a major implication
President Joe Biden recently asked the Department of Defense to add COVID to the list of the vaccinations troops have to get.
Biden said in a statement from the White House:
Being vaccinated will enable our service members to stay healthy, to better protect their families, and to ensure that our force is ready to operate anywhere in the world,
We cannot let up in the fight against COVID-19, especially with the delta variant spreading rapidly through unvaccinated populations.
Lloyd Austin’s memo says it loud and clear:
I strongly encourage all DoD military and civilian personnel — as well as contractor personnel — to get vaccinated now and for military service members to not wait for the mandate.
The Delta variant of COVID, which is considered the most contagious strain, is causing a recent surge of coronavirus infections across the US. It’s most likely that the urge for vaccination comes as a result of the new increase in the number of COVID infections.
For instance, there had been over 100,000 COVID infections reported yesterday in the US, according to worldometers.info. This brings the total number of infections to over 36.7 million since the pandemic started.
