WASHINGTON – The Pentagon is considering sending active duty troops to large, federal coronavirus vaccination centers, an important departure for the department and the first major sign that the Biden government is taking more control of a program that states struggling to drive.
© Jim Wilson / The New York Times
Wednesday is a vaccine in Rohnert Park, California. The Federal Emergency Management Agency hopes to build about 100 vaccination sites nationwide as early as next month.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency hopes to set up about 100 vaccination stations nationwide as early as next month, and requested Wednesday night that the Pentagon send assistance to support the effort. The sites, and the use of the military in them, will require the approval of state governments.
While many state governors turned to their national guard units to help with the massive effort to vaccinate Americans and transcend more contagious variants of the coronavirus, the role of the Pentagon was largely behind the scenes, providing assistance with logistic.
During his confirmation hearings last week, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said he would increase military support to manage the pandemic. Max Rose, mr. Austin’s senior adviser to Covid-19 said Thursday his first topic of conversation in meetings with senior leaders made it the ‘No’. 1 priority. ”
Sending troops to help set up yards, logistical assistance and even firearms is something the Department of Defense is “actively considering,” he said. He declined to provide details and said Pentagon officials would carefully review FEMA’s request.
“We are obviously going to make use of this request,” said John F. Kirby, the Pentagon’s press secretary, saying that after a review it is likely to be filled with more troops from the national guard, reserve and active duty.
“I would say we talk for days, certainly not weeks, to get it,” he said. Kirby said. “We know there is an urgency.”
The military is likely to provide thousands of troops in the next few months, not unlike the mobilization the Trump administration put together a few years ago to supplement enforcement at the border with Mexico.
Many states and territories have set up large vaccination rooms, and more than half use members of the National Guard to give shots and use doctors, nurses, medics and others skilled in giving injections. FEMA, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security, has already told six states, two territories and Washington, DC that they will spend $ 1 billion on vaccination measures, including municipal vaccination sites.
It was not immediately clear where the vaccines would come from for new federal sites; they would most likely be drawn from the offer already given to individual states and territories. Most states did not come close to administering the vaccine they received.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has already said he does not want ‘FEMA camps’ in his state. “This is not necessary in Florida,” he told reporters last week after the Biden government announced its plan to address the pandemic, including the FEMA websites. “All we need is more vaccine.”
The Trump administration largely prefers states to manage efforts to combat the pandemic, leaving governors protective equipment for health care workers and testing, contact detection, and other aspects of response. While speeding up pharmaceutical ventures to accelerate vaccine development, and offering guidance on who to prioritize to get shots, it has largely left states to manage their inventory.
State governments have faced a number of problems getting their vaccines into the gun, including resistance among some health care and nursing home workers and others in vaccine preference groups, and struggling in medical centers to manage their supplies.
The Biden government has set goals to get more Americans vaccinated quickly, but it is not clear that there will be enough supplies if it succeeds in speeding up the logistics system, especially with many Americans now waiting for second shots.
The federal government has reimbursed countries, many of which are struggling due to large tax revenues, for only 75 percent of their National Guard costs associated with coronavirus relief. The administration will increase it to 100 percent, including for the support needed to distribute and administer vaccines, until the end of September.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs reported.
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