More US troops are willing to take coronavius vaccines, education efforts may be reducing the reluctance.

Fewer Troops Are Declining the COVID Vaccine. We May Never Know Why Defense leaders say education efforts and seeing peers get vaccinated are reducing the reluctance. Elizabeth Howe Defense One

Anyone in the Defense Department who wants a COVID vaccine will become eligible on April 19 and able to get one by mid-May, defense officials said on Thursday. And fewer appear to be declining the shots.

DoD does “not track declinations,” Maj. Gen. Jill K. Faris of U.S. Army Medical Command said during a Thursday press conference, reiterating the Pentagon’s stance on a question that has come up repeatedly since February reports that around one-third of troops were declining the vaccine. 

But Faris said officials are seeing “an overall trend in a positive way with more people accepting the vaccine.” 

“As the vaccines have been around, as people are getting vaccinated, we’re seeing an increase in those who take the vaccine,” Faris said. “We believe that’s due in large part to the education and the materials we put out — information that our clinicians are able to push out via social media, giving information at town halls, and pushing it to commanders to answer questions that service members might have.”

But DoD still does not know exactly who wants the vaccine and why those who decline do so. 

“We don’t have a system in place across the services to specifically track data for those individuals who for whatever reason are declining or deferring the vaccine,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said at a briefing in February. ...

... the vaccine remains strictly voluntary for all troops regardless of pending deployments to sea or foreign countries. ...