WASHINGTON (AP) – Guantanamo Bay detainees can now begin receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, a senior defense official told The Associated Press on Monday, months after a plan to vaccinate them was announced due to outrage that many Americans were not. eligible to receive the shots.
The new timing coincides with President Joe Biden’s deadline for states to make the vaccines more widely available in the US. As of Monday, everyone 16 and older qualifies to sign up and get into a virtual line to be vaccinated.
The defense official said all 40 men detained at the Cuban naval base were offered the vaccination to meet the legal requirements regarding the treatment of prisoners and to prevent COVID-19 from spreading. Strict quarantine procedures have severely curtailed activities at the base and suspended lawsuits for prisoners facing war crimes trials, including the men charged in the September 11, 2001 attack.
“It is clear that we do not want an outbreak of COVID on a remote island with the challenges it will present,” the official said on condition of anonymity to discuss the attempt before an official announcement.
The announcement in January that the military intends to offer the vaccine to prisoners has drawn intense criticism, especially among Republicans in Congress, at a time when COVID-19 vaccines have only been rolled out to troops and civilians in Guantanamo. and was not widely available in the United States.
Several Republican lawmakers supported legislation that would prevent Guantanamo detainees from receiving the vaccine until all Americans had the opportunity to receive it.
House minority leader Kevin McCarthy criticized the decision on Twitter. “President Biden told us he would have a plan to defeat the virus on Day 1,” the California Republican said on January 30. “He just never told us that it should give most vaccinations to the terrorists.”
Although the decision to vaccinate inmates may still be controversial, an important difference now is that the vaccine is now more widely available, both at the base and in the US. Half of all adults in the country received at least one dose of the shot. .
At Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, 56% of the total population of about 5,700 people, a mix of military personnel, contractors and dependents, have been vaccinated, and the shot is available to any adult who wants it, said Dawn Grimes, a public official. matter, said. officer for the base hospital.
There are about 1,500 people assigned to the task force that manages the detention center at the base. There were no known cases of COVID-19 among them, nor among any of the prisoners.
Medical staff have already discussed the vaccination with the inmates. The military does not intend to disclose how many ultimately decide to accept it, the official said, referring to medical privacy regulations.
Some of the men detained at the base may be skeptical about the vaccine as they have been treated by the U.S. government over the years, but others are eager to be vaccinated and were disappointed when the initial attempt was suspended, he said. Ramzi Kassem said. , a law professor at City University of New York, representing inmates.
“Although the government has argued for years in court that prisoners receive similar health care as soldiers on the base, politics defeated the first vaccination attempt,” Kassem said. “I am relieved that reality is finally fulfilling legal obligations in a small way.”
The government in Biden announced in April that it could carry out a full review of detention center operations with the aim of finally closing the facility, which opened in January 2002 to protect people suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban after the attacks on September 11. .
At its peak in 2003, the detention center at the naval base on the southeastern tip of Cuba detained nearly 680 detainees, and it brought widespread condemnation of the treatment of the men detained there, mostly without charge.
Its closure is a challenge because the US has tried to continue to detain and prosecute some prisoners, but Congress has prevented the transportation of anyone detained there for any reason.
Those still being held there include Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, who along with four others are facing charges that include murder and terrorism over the 9/11 attacks. The case, which has been stuck for a long time, remains in the pre-trial stage, and no hearings have been held in more than a year due to the pandemic.
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This story has been corrected to show that the vaccine is now available in the US for everyone 16 and older, not 18 and older.