Now that the Nov. 28 deadline has passed, the various Navy commands may begin preparing separation paperwork for unvaccinated sailors. Because of the various scenarios that personnel face with their vaccination status, from partially vaccinated to having their exemption request denied or expire, the services will need to address each one individually.“We will be addressing each case on a case-by-case basis,” Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said Nov. 17.
“We’re just not going to all kick them out on the day of the deadline itself,” Service members who refuse to get fully vaccinated or to secure an official exemption will generally see their careers come to an end; they cannot be promoted, reenlist, or take a leadership role. Sailors and Marines have been able to ask for exemptions to COVID-19 vaccine like they can for other mandated vaccines. The Marine Corps has approved 14 permanent medical exemptions, 316 temporary medical exemptions, and 452 temporary administrative exemptions. The Navy has approved seven permanent medical exemptions, 400 temporary medical exemptions, and 134 administrative exemptions.
The Navy has six pending medical exemption requests. Religious accommodations request follows a process, starting with a chaplain interview and working its way to a final approval authority for adjudication. The Navy department “does not normally grant religious accommodations for vaccinations,” the Marine Corps said in a statement. and that holds true in the data for the COVID-19 vaccine. As of Monday, 2,441 Marines and 2,531 sailors had requested religious accommodation requests; zero have been approved. The Marine Corps is still processing around 540 accommodation requests.Starting Monday, unvaccinated sailors, including those with exemptions, will be tested weekly if they work in Defense Department facilities, according to a Navy administrative message.
Those who work remotely or come to work less than weekly will not need to be tested. However, they will need to show a negative test within 72 hours of coming to work at a facility.The Navy also announced Monday that a 47-year-old reserve sailor, Electronics Technician First Class William Mathews, had died of complications from COVID-19 on Nov. 24. Mathews is the 16th sailor known to have died from the virus. Across the military, 75 service members have died from the virus as of Nov. 24 and more than 253,000 have been infected.
The newest variant of concern, called Omicron, was first discovered in South Africa and cases have been found in Europe, Canada, and Australia. While the variant has not yet been found in the United States, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that it was only a matter of time.”We all know when you have a virus that has already gone to multiple countries, inevitably it will be here. The question is, will we be prepared for it?,” Fauci said Sunday during an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” Fauci said the best way to prepare is to get more people vaccinated and those who are already vaccinated a booster shot.
by Caitlin M. Kenney
Originally published by Defense One