United States Air Force Discharges 27 Military For Refusing Coronavirus Vaccine

The Air Force of U.S It said Monday that 27 service members had been discharged for refusing to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, the first active duty troops believed to have been withdrawn for refusing the vaccine.

The Pentagon ordered the vaccine to be mandatory for all service members in August and the vast majority of active duty troops have received at least one dose.

Ann Stefanek, an Air Force spokeswoman, said the troops had a chance to explain why they had refused to be vaccinated, but none of them were given exemptions.

Approximately 97% of Air Force personnel are vaccinated against the coronavirus, a number much higher than the general population of the United States. The air and space force has about 326,000 active duty personnel.

In total, 79 soldiers from the different services have died as a result of the coronavirus.

U.S It reached 800,000 coronavirus-related deaths on Sunday, according to a Reuters tally, as the nation braces for a potential spike in infections due to more time spent indoors and the highly communicable omicron variant in winter.

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