Bill Ending Military Vaccine Mandate On Verge Of Final Approval

Republicans in Congress are praising the inclusion of language to rescind the Covid vaccine mandate for service members in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act.

At a news conference Thursday morning, GOP Senators, including Oklahoma Senator James Lankford, said the mandate was wrong from the beginning, has contributed to a worsening recruiting crisis for the military and, with the pandemic largely behind us, must go.

“We’re ready to just get back to business and to be able to focus on areas where we need to focus as a nation,” Sen. Lankford (R-OK) said at the news conference. “So, let’s get back to that today, let’s get this NDAA passed.”

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), for whom this year’s NDAA is named, agreed in an interview Thursday that ending the mandate will boost recruitment.

“It should help,” Inhofe said. “In fact, we have evidence that shows, in terms of polling data and all the others, it’ll help us.”

According to reports, the Army was 25% off its recruiting goal for 2022, while the other branches barely hit their goals, which in some cases had been revised downward.

The Biden administration believes it's a mistake to stop requiring service members to get vaccinated for COVID-19, especially considering they're already required to get about a dozen other shots, but there's been no threat of a veto.

"The vast majority of the military have been vaccinated, the vast majority," Sen. Lankford said in an interview Thursday, "but it does affect a group, and it’s a significant group, especially with National Guard. We’ve had quite an issue with retention in National Guards all over the country and in Oklahoma."

Lankford said those who want to serve in the military are young and healthy and have likely already had Covid, perhaps several times, meaning they've built up a natural immunity to the virus.

"The natural immunity is having an impact across society, which is a very good thing, we’re all getting better and better," Lankford said. "Now the vaccine is needed really for those who have secondary issues and who are older. We want to make sure we continue to be able to protect those individuals but give choice back to those members of the military. The last thing we should be doing is dropping people out of the military right now."

The House passed the $858 billion NDAA last week. Sources suggested it was likely to come to the Senate floor sometime Thursday evening.