The Department of Defense plans to reassign doses of Moderna to overseas bases in light of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine break

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The department stopped distributing Johnson & Johnson vaccines earlier this week in response to recommendations from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The FDA and CDC recommended that the U.S. pause the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in six reported cases in the U.S. of a “rare and severe” type of blood clot.

Each U.S. military service will send “a total of approximately 30,000 additional doses of Moderna throughout the month of May,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said during a news conference Friday. “That’s about 10,000 a week starting May 10.”

Additional doses of Moderna will be sent to US European Command, US Central Command and US Indo-Pacific Command, Kirby said.

“This will help keep vaccination efforts at the right pace to provide initial doses to more than 70 percent of our overseas staff and their families by the end of May,” Kirby said.

Several military personnel and their families expressed their frustration at the slow pace of deployment of vaccines abroad, as they and their families rely on the military health system and each base has a health clinic that serves its community.
The top U.S. general in charge of U.S. troops in Europe acknowledged that the distribution of vaccines at overseas bases has not been equal to the distribution at U.S. bases during a hearing in Congress on Thursday.

“Secretary (Lloyd) Austin was key in pointing out that the percentage of these Tier 1 military uniform members who have received the vaccine at CONUS should be equivalent to the same in Europe and the Pacific and the same for dependents , which has not been the “We are working to fix it,” said General Tod Wolters, commander of the U.S. European Command.

The U.S. European Command goes from receiving 3,500 vaccines a week to “being able to receive 18,000 vaccines a week,” Wolters said Thursday.

Wolters said the pause in Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine distribution will affect the ability to increase vaccine distribution at European bases, but the situation at European bases will be “significantly different” by the end of May.

“Unfortunately, with the J&J limit, there will probably be an approximate 20% reduction in these rises, and we are still working on these details, but the image of the site from Europe for the military and certainly for the dependents, it will be will be significantly different in late May than it is today, because we will actually triple our overload capacity, ”Wolters said.

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