The Department of Defense is prioritizing distribution of COVID-19 vaccinations to individuals deployed overseas, officials said Thursday.

Army Lt. Gen. Ronald J. Place, director of the Defense Health Agency, told reporters Thursday that deployed personnel are being prioritized due to limited availability of vaccinations from local health providers, according to a Pentagon press release.

The DoD has set aside 14% of the vaccine doses it has received for overseas personnel, Place said, noting that they make up 7% of the DoD's eligible population.

"That said if you're a service member stationed overseas, or a family member likewise stationed overseas and you haven't received a vaccine, and you don't know when you'll be able to, these numbers mean nothing. And it's understandably frustrating," Place said.

Place said the military isn't vaccinating personnel as quickly as officials would like due to the loss of 15 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson due to contamination last week.

According to Place, the number of military personnel outside the continental U.S. is" 10 or 15 percent higher rates than the continental United States at this point."

Place also said that the Department of Defense has administered about 688,000 vaccines to personnel as of Wednesday.

"Now, some of those are -- are first dose and second dose but fully vaccinated of -- people with second dose, of the vaccine given, we have about 67 percent of those individuals," Place said.

Adm. Gayle Shaffer, deputy surgeon general of the Navy, said roughly 35% of active-duty Navy personnel have been vaccinated.

According to Air Force Maj. Gen. Robert I. Miller, director of medical operations, office of the surgeon general, U.S. Air Force, 11.1% of Air Force personnel have received at least one dose of a vaccine and 7.2% have received two shots.

In the general U.S. population, as of Thursday, 33.7% have had at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 19.9% are fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At the end of March Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Dr. Terry Adirim said it's possible that by early summer, every person in the DoD could be vaccinated.

On Thursday Place said all DoD installations will be opening vaccination eligibility to all tiers of the population, consistent with President Joe Biden's announcement of changed eligibility requirements earlier this week.

At the end of March Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif., sent a letter to the White House Wednesday along with six other House Democrats, urging Biden to issue a waiver making the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory for service members.

On Thursday Place said all individuals will have an opportunity to be vaccinated before deployment, but the vaccine is "not a mandatory requirement for readiness."

As of Thursday the Department of Defense had reported a cumulative total of 271,470 cases since the COVID-19 pandemic began -- up from 262,395 March 25.

Of those, 177,359 were among active-duty military, 49,430 among civilian DoD employees, 26,905 among dependents and 17,776 among DoD contractors.

Most -- 256,264 -- have recovered, but 3,814 were hospitalized and 332 have died.

Hong Kong suspends its order of AstraZeneca jabs
Hong Kong (AFP) April 9, 2021 - Hong Kong on Friday confirmed it has requested AstraZeneca suspend delivery of its Covid-19 vaccine amid fears of severe side effects and concerns over its efficacy against new variants of the coronavirus.

Europe's medicines regulator said this week the AstraZeneca vaccine could cause very rare blood clots in some recipients, prompting a cascade of countries to pull the plug on giving it to people under a certain age.

Britain sought Thursday to quell fears over the jab, saying the potential side effects were extremely rare -- and the risk of falling seriously sick from Covid-19 was far greater.

On Friday Hong Kong's health chief Sophia Chan said the city has asked AstraZeneca not to deliver as planned later this year.

"We think it is not necessary for AstraZeneca to deliver the vaccines to the city within this year," she said, adding Hong Kong wanted "to avoid any waste as vaccines are in short supply globally".

Wealthy Hong Kong has already secured a good supply of vaccines for its 7.5 million residents.

It has signed deals for 7.5 million shots each with BioNTech/Pfizer and China's Sinovac, both of which have begun deliveries.

Chan said Hong Kong was also keen to look at other vaccines that may have stronger results against newer strains of the coronavirus.

Earlier this week David Hui, a leading public health expert and government adviser, called for Hong Kong to replace AstraZeneca with a new single dose vaccine made by Johnson and Johnson.

Densely populated Hong Kong was one of the first places to be hit by the coronavirus, but strict social distancing and universal mask wearing have helped keep infections to just over 11,000 with 205 deaths.

While it has a steady supply of vaccines, take up has been slow amid swirling distrust of the government as Beijing cracks down on democracy supporters.

So far just 529,000 people have had their first dose.

Public confidence has also been hampered by government messaging.

China's Sinovac received fast-track approval despite not publishing its clinical trial data in a peer reviewed journal.

Administration of BioNTech's vaccine was also briefly suspended after some vials were found to be defective even though authorities said any damaged bottles were discarded before being used in vaccinations.

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China weighs carrots and sticks in push to vaccinate millions
Beijing (AFP) April 8, 2021
Tickets to tourist attractions, shopping coupons, and report cards naming and shaming stores where staff haven't been vaccinated: China is veering from compulsion to persuasion in its bid to inoculate its population from Covid. The country has administered around 140 million doses - most people will require two shots - since vaccinations began last year and aims to fully inoculate 40 percent of its 1.4 billion people by June. But many in China have been slow to sign up for jabs, feeling they a ... read more