Pentagon officials tout progress in vaccinations

Pentagon officials said Thursday they are making steady progress on the number of vaccinations taken up by military personnel.

Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Dr. Terry Adirim and Army Lt. Gen. Ronald J. Place, director, Defense Health Agency outlined the positive data at a briefing on COVID Thursday.

"To date, we've administered over 3.3 million doses to eligible DOD personnel, with 58 percent of our active-duty service members having had at least one dose," Adirim told reporters.

Adirim said that military personnel, their families and contractors have an incidence rate of coronavirus lower than for the civilian population.

Adirim indicated this signalled "that our force health protection measures are working."

Army Lt. Gen. Ronald J. Place, when asked if the efforts of the military should lessen now that the level of those vaccinated has risen said: "I don't think we've reached a point where our efforts need to stop. Our efforts, stop when we've eliminated people dying from this disease."

Our efforts stop when we've eliminated people being admitted to the hospital for this. And our efforts stop when it stops being a negative aspect to the way that commanders do commander business."

The Defense Department has had nearly 300,000 COVID -19 cases and 351 deaths and 4000 hospitalizations the officials told reporters.

These are total numbers that include military service members, their dependents, civilians and contractors.