Cannon rolling out COVID-19 vaccine in phases

CANNON AIR FORCE BASE — Cannon Air Force Base began rolling out COVID-19 vaccines to personnel in mid-January. Like the rest of the country, they are administering it in phases.

“Medical personnel who are providing direct medical care, security forces and first responders will be the first to receive the vaccine. The next phase will be national critical capabilities personnel, then mission essential personnel and essential support personnel. The DoD is following the CDC’s prioritization guidelines for distribution,” Staff Sgt. Michael Washburn of the 27 SOW Public Affairs Office said.

Similar to New Mexico’s phases, the United States Department of Defense plan includes two main phases with several sub-groupings.

Phase 1a includes military healthcare personnel and non-clinical staff who are at heightened risk of exposure to individuals with COVID-19. Phase 1b includes personnel preparing to be deployed out of the U.S., critical national capabilities personnel, DoD beneficiaries +75, and frontline essential workers. Phase 1c is all DoD beneficiaries 65 and older, beneficiaries 16 and older with increased risk and other essential workers. Phase 2 includes all others 16 or older who have not been vaccinated.

The vaccine is voluntary for personnel, as it currently is not formally licensed by the Food and Drug Administration. But personnel are highly encouraged to receive the vaccine when available.

A specific number of vaccines received and administered by the base was not provided to The News, but staff at the 27 SOW Public Affairs Office were optimistic they would receive adequate dose amounts.

“I think for us it marks the beginning of the end of the pandemic, and I’m pretty excited about the idea of going back to some sort of normal. Really it means an added level of protection for our force and families that we’ve been looking for quite some time. This is a pretty good milestone for us here at Cannon,” Colonel Robert Masaitis, Commander, 27th Special Operations Wing CAFB said in a CAFB Facebook video after receiving the vaccine.

“We’re really looking forward to getting back to some sense of normalcy. Even if the vaccine doesn’t allow that right away, it’s a step in the right direction. I am actually a little happy about the opportunity to move forward in life,” Chief Master Sergeant Shawn Aiello, Command Chief, 27th Special Operations Wing CAFB said in the same video.

Public Affairs noted that personnel who are not included in Phase 1 should register for a vaccine through the state, and that their vaccine availability is based on CDC and DoD priorities.

When COVID-19 vaccines were first approved in December the DoD along with the Center for Disease Control came up with a multi-level distribution plan. As one of 64 jurisdictions to which the United States Government allocated vaccine doses the DoD not only had to prioritize who could get the vaccine, they had to decide which facilities initial doses would go to first.

“Due to limited availability of initial vaccine doses, the first phase will distribute and administer vaccines at select locations. Initial distribution sites were selected by the DOD’s COVID Task Force from sites recommended by the military services and U.S. Coast Guard,” a news release from the DoD on Dec. 9 read.

These initial DoD sites were chosen based off of three major criteria; the facility having the proper ultra-cold or bulk storage, a local population of at least 1,000 priority personnel to facilitate rapid vaccine administration, and sufficient medical personnel to support the vaccination process.

There were 16 DoD sites that were the first chosen to receive the vaccine. Included in those were 12 medical centers within the continental U.S. to states including Texas, California, Virginia, and Florida, and four medical centers outside the continental U.S. in Germany, Japan, Korea, and Hawaii.

This first wave of COVID-19 vaccinations which began on Dec. 13 included approximately 43,000 doses for the DoD. By the end of December they were able to receive more than 160,000 doses at 150 DoD vaccination sites, according to a Dec. 31 news release. By mid-January the Military Times reported that approximately 370,000 doses had been received by DoD facilities.