(Add comments from the White House Chief of Staff)
By Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart
WASHINGTON, January 28 (Reuters) – The Pentagon is evaluating a request from the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for assistance with the administration of COVID-19 vaccines, a spokesman said Thursday.
President Joe Biden said Monday he believes it is possible to have 150 million doses of vaccine administered in his first 100 days in office.
“Given the importance of the request, it will be urgently but carefully reviewed to determine which DoD assets can be safely made available to support the effort,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.
In an information session later on Thursday, Kirby said he would not be surprised if military aid included a mix of active duty, national guard and reserve troops.
The Pentagon did not provide the number of troops that could be involved.
White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain told CBS Evening News that FEMA is working with the Pentagon to deploy 10,000 troops and open 100 centers across the country to increase the availability of vaccines.
The pandemic, which killed more than 420,000 Americans, currently infects more than 173,000 people daily and leaves millions out of work.
The use of the military to fight the coronavirus is not new. At its peak under former President Donald Trump, more than 47,000 National Guard troops supported COVID-19 operations and about 20,000 still help.
The Army Corps of Engineers has also built thousands of rooms across the country to help hospitals with the stress caused by the spread of the coronavirus. (Reported by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart, edited by Dan Grebler and Peter Cooney)
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