Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti - Feb 2021: Army Staff. Sgt. Kristin Zimmerman, a civil affairs medic, administers a Covid-19 vaccine. Around 1,100 personnel at Camp Lemonnier have now received their first round of the COVID-19 vaccine. (Air Force photo by Senior Airman Taylor Davis)
By: FEDweek StaffChief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday believes that if more sailors and officers accept the voluntary vaccinations for Covid-19, the strenuous operations tempo that has been in place since the pandemic began last would ease.
“Right now … the average across the Department of Defense is about 70 percent in terms of the take rate for the vaccine,” Gilday said, speaking at a press roundtable last month while he was aboard the carrier Nimitz.
The vaccine acceptance rate on many Navy ships is much higher than that, exceeding 95 percent in some cases, Gilday said.
More vaccinations “will allow us to relieve the command, relieve those ships of a number of requirements, including potentially the long sequester of 14 days. And that’s what we really want to do,” Gilday said.
The Navy has issued guidance stating that sequester rates for the ships with higher numbers of vaccinations should drop considerably, Gilday said, and allow for the service to better manage the risk the virus poses.
Gilday also addressed the strain the increased operations tempo has had on families. He would like to see deployment lengths span about seven or eight months.
“If we can maintain that and also at the same time try to maintain that head-to-toe cadence of getting aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines out of shipyard on time, we can maintain readiness and at the same time keep predictable first tempo-informed deployment lengths for our sailors,” Gilday said.
