Thousands of U.S. Marines face dismissal if they are not vaccinated against coronavirus

More than 12,500 members of the U.S. Marine Corps may be fired because they have not been vaccinated against the coronavirus. This was reported by Military Times on Sunday evening.

Marines have until Nov. 28 to be vaccinated. This can only be done with a Johnson & Johnson single-unit vaccine. The use of other drugs produced by Pfizer and Moderna does not allow the soldiers to meet the deadline. These vaccines have two components, so in order to meet the deadline, the first had to be administered by October 24, the second by October 17.

According to the command, by October 28, 93% of Marines were fully or partially vaccinated against COVID-19. It is possible that the rest, for whatever reason, do not intend to be vaccinated, so they will have to be discharged, the paper warned.

“I don’t think it will be thousands of Marines,” the paper quoted Marine Corps commander General David Berger as saying. – We’ll have to wait until the end of November and see.” Berger said he hoped there would be more encouraging data closer to that date, since some troops may not have had time to report to vaccination. The general attributed the lack of confidence in vaccinations among some military personnel to various rumors and speculation on the Internet.

Marines, like their counterparts in other branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, are eligible for exemptions from vaccinations for medical or religious reasons. All such applications are reviewed within a week. “Several of them,” according to Berger, have been granted. No waivers for religious reasons have yet been requested.