US Navy not mandating COVID-19 vaccines for sailors
The US maritime force is not forcing sailors to get the COVID-19 vaccination but highly recommends it.
By Michael McGrady, Maritime Direct Americas Correspondent
In a strange policy, the United States Navy will not mandate the COVID-19 vaccine for its combat and non-combat maritime personnel.
Admiral Michael Gilday, the chief of naval operations, said the choice to get vaccinated would be left up to sailors.
The Navy has no intention of mandating inoculation during the interim. Later on, though, is an entirely separate story.
“Drugs and vaccines have to be approved by the FDA to ensure only safe and effective products are available to the American public. In situations like this, when there is good scientific reason to believe a product is safe and is likely to treat or prevent disease – which there is in this case – the FDA authorized its emergency use under specific circumstances,” Gilday said in an official statement.
Due to the unique expedited approval regime that the COVID-19 vaccines went through, the mandate for a fleet-wide vaccination program won’t come until the Food and Drug Administration gives this class of preventive drugs a more rigorous approval.
He added: “Bottom line – the FDA has evaluated the vaccine as safe, but it will remain voluntary until official FDA approval.”
On March 19, 2020, Army Lt. General Ronald Place — the director of the Defense Health Agency and the Defense Department’s Military Health System — and Navy Surgeon General Rear Admiral Bruce Gillingham discussed that the service branch’s initial COVID-19 response focused on containing the virus to the most limited exposure among sailors infected.
While the COVID-19 virus is a drain on service capabilities, the Navy and the Defense Department agree that mandatory vaccinations from, essentially, an experimental class of inoculations could pose individual challenges among the total fleet population.
For Merchant Marine operators and civilian crews, mandatory vaccinations are commonplace.
Charterers and ship operators of all sorts require inoculation and additional medical support methods to improve general immunity to the virus and the overall health.
