The National Guard is mobilizing

In order to speed up vaccine deployment, states are recruiting their national guards.

More than 20,000 members of the National Guard are engaged in the vaccination mission, with at least nine states using the guard to put needles in the arms of residents. At least 22 other states have activated units to help with logistical and administrative tasks related to vaccinations.

As the crisis intensifies, more states will likely turn to the military.

However, those hoping the guard will be able to help with major acceleration may be disappointed.

The National Guard operates independently in all 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia. In most cases, it is activated by the governor. Overall, the country’s 54 guard units have 450,000 soldiers at their disposal. During the early days of Covid in the United States, nearly 50,000 people were deployed to help with testing, but most of those deployments ended.

Despite the abilities and expertise in various fields, the guard usually does not have a primary role. Instead, on-call units are usually prepared to supplement existing resources in state and county health departments.

“The power of the military is logistics,” said military analyst Emma Moore, who has studied the National Guard extensively for the Center for New American Security. “The custodian will be able to complement state and local health facilities and ease some of the burden on civilian medical infrastructure.

In Maryland, Governor Larry Hogan acknowledged the frustration over the slow start of the vaccination effort.

“While neither of us is thrilled with the pace of this deployment in the first two weeks, I can assure you that it is improving day by day,” he said on Tuesday.

To help, the Maryland National Guard was activated last week. Despite the frightening rise of the pandemic and the desperate need for gunfire, only 150 members of the guard have received recall orders. In most cases, people who are trained and ready for this type of work also hold civilian jobs in the medical sector, so officials are reluctant to remove them from their civilian jobs, where they also fight crisis. health of a century.

These 150 Maryland Guardsmen were divided into 14 teams. Some are responsible for giving vaccines to civilians, others assist local and state health departments in other areas, such as setting up and maintaining sites and establishing social distancing protocols at centers. firing line and ensuring that the lines are not overloaded with people waiting for an injection.

“Going faster is going to be complicated for a lot of these National Guard units due to many complicating factors, including civilian careers, family responsibilities and getting orders from the civilian chain of command, which also needs to find funding, ”Moore said.

In Michigan, 59 ranger teams work in the field on immunizations, totaling 369 members.

Michigan was one of the first to deploy the guard for the vaccination mission. The Michigan National Guard has administered more than 8,000 rounds to date, but has limited capacity to expedite deployments. Even with this early help, only 1.4% of the state was vaccinated.

Another factor slowing down National Guard calls in some states is the politicization of the pandemic, which has led some governors to refrain from fearing a backlash for implicating the military in a crisis some people did not have. fully adhered.

It has been a terribly busy year for the National Guard. Members were brought to Washington on Wednesday to help secure the Capitol during the deadly riot by supporters of President Donald Trump.

“We have had storms, civil unrest and Covid-related missions for months,” said Wayne Hall, spokesperson for the Office of the National Guard, which serves as the liaison between the federal government and the 54 units of the National Guard.

“It’s really up to each governor how to use the National Guard, the governors set the priorities, there is no federal mandate, each state has its own priorities,” he said.