FEMA And Pentagon To Join For Administering Covid Vaccine

FEMA asks the Pentagon to help administer the COVID-19 vaccine

RACHEL SHARP FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

• Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said Thursday it had received a request from FEMA to assist with getting shots in the arms of Americans 
• He said it is evaluating the request to see what 'kinds of support it can provide' 
• Kirby said that 'given the significance of the request it will be reviewed urgently but carefully' to determine what military assets can be safely made available 
• The Pentagon did not go into detail on how many troops could be involved
• Kirby said later that it will likely involve a mix of active-duty National Guard and reserve troops performing 'a variety of coronavirus related tasks'
• White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said the plan is for the Pentagon to provide 10,000 troops and help open up 100 vaccination centers nationwide
• President Biden has vowed to embark on a 'full scale war-time effort' to beat the pandemic that has so far killed more than 420,000 Americans
• Biden on Monday upped his COVID-19 vaccination goal to 1.5 million doses every day - equivalent to 150 million in his first 100 days in office
• To date, just 27.3 million doses have been administered nationwide in the more than six weeks since the first American got a shot on December 14
• That said, an average of 1.26 million doses are now being administered per day 

The Pentagon's top spokesman announced Thursday it had received a request to assist with getting shots in the arms of Americans across different parts of the country.  

'The Department of Defense has received a request from FEMA for assistance in administering COVID-19 vaccine at various locations across the country. 

Kirby said that 'given the significance of the request it will be reviewed urgently but carefully' to determine what military assets can be safely made available to help the vaccine rollout.

'As [Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin] has said, DOD is committed to do as much as it possibly can to assist the whole-of-government effort against COVID-19,' he added

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