The second town hall is scheduled for at 10 a.m. Thursday, in which 88th Medical Group clinicians will address the status of vaccine distribution and timeline for vaccine administration.
Retirees and other Tricare beneficiaries are “highly encouraged” to view this town hall to receive the latest information on when they will be eligible to receive the vaccine, the base said in a release Wednesday. Tricare is the health care program for uniformed service members, retirees and their families.
The Department of Defense plan for vaccine distribution puts health care and essential first-responders first in line to get the vaccine, followed by people necessary to accomplish certain key missions, Airmen set to deploy, then “high-risk” health beneficiaries before, finally, the healthy DoD population at large.
The Air Force is not defining who is “high-risk,” base commander Col. Patrick Miller has said. U.S. Centers for Disease Control guidelines are followed there —with that category including older adults and people with serious medical conditions.
The vaccine is expected to be available for uniformed and non-uniformed personnel, as well as dependents and retirees.
Ohio’s largest single-site employer has weathered the pandemic through shifting most workers to home and other locations. At the start of the pandemic, just 10% of the base’s typical 30,000 military and civilian workers were permitted to be physically on base.
By May, commanders were allowed to bring up to 20% of their assigned workforce back to base offices. Miller assumed command of the 88th Air Base Wing in June.
By September, Miller announced the prevailing base health protection condition had shifted from “Charlie” to “Bravo,” meaning half of the base’s typical workforce could conceivably be permitted to return, boosting the daily presence on the base to 15,000 or so workers.
But Miller has repeatedly emphasized that reaching 15,000 on-site workers is not a target or a goal, and he has called on commanders to exercise caution in returning workers to the facility.
Expect this story to be updated.
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