“We have already put over 10,000 vaccines in arms and are holding strong as the second largest number in the Air Force, only behind Lackland Air Force Base,” Miller said, according to an account of the call posted on Wright-Patterson’s web site.
Base leaders have encouraged Airmen to get the vaccine for weeks. The COVID-19 vaccine is not mandatory, and Wright-Patterson employees can volunteer to get the vaccine, but only in the “appropriate phasing,” Miller has emphasized.
That phasing follows a Department of Defense plan: Health care and essential first-responders are to get the vaccine first, then people necessary to accomplish certain key missions, Airmen set to deploy, then “high-risk” beneficiaries before, finally, the healthy population.
In mid-January, more than 1 million Tricare-for-Life beneficiaries who are age 75 and older became eligible for the vaccination, but supplies have varied by location.
Some states has made the vaccines available to those who are 65 and older, as well as to others with underlying medical conditions.
In Ohio this week, people who endure childhood medical conditions they have carried into adulthood are now eligible for the vaccine.
This group is the last to become eligible in Phase 1B of state’s overall vaccine rollout.
Across the state, demand has generally far outpaced supply for the vaccine.
Tricare is the health insurance program for uniformed service members, retirees and their families.
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