Coronavirus Survivors Disqualified from Entering Military
A new memorandum, provided for Military Entrance Processing locations, bars entry to coronavirus survivors. Those who tested positive, or who were clinically diagnosed, would have to wait 28 days before reporting for processing. There, they would be marked unqualified for military service.
This designation would be a permanent designation. Those that receive this designation may forward a waiver. However, no guidelines were given to process coronavirus disqualification waivers.
From Military Times:
Maxwell declined to explain why a coronavirus diagnosis would be permanently disqualifying, compared to other viral, non-chronic illnesses that do not preclude military service.
However, given the limited research on COVID-19, there are likely a few factors that military medical professionals are trying to hash out when it comes to recruiting survivors: Whether respiratory damage from the virus is long-lasting or permanent, and whether that can be assessed; the likelihood of recurring flare-ups, even if someone has had two consecutive negative tests; and the possibility that one bout of COVID-19 might not provide full immunity for the future, and could potentially leave someone at a higher risk to contract it again, perhaps with worse complications.
The move comes as the services prepare for a surge of post-graduation recruits during the summer and fall high season.
In recent weeks, new trainees have been 100-percent tested for COVID-19 before starting training. So far, clusters have been discovered at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, the Army and Marine Corps’ biggest initial entry training installations.
Military Times has more information on this link.
Category: COVID-19, Military issues
If there are as many people who have gotten this and never even realized it (meaning there may be LOTS and LOTS of people who have had the WuFlu) as people are hinting at, this prohibition will likely not be around too long. That is, if they expect to have enough recruits in the pipeline.
I’m guessing the “unknown factors” include things like “is it still something they can transmit to others, even if they survived and have immunity to it”.
Hmmm, I wonder if this means that those who are on active duty now and have been diagnosed/recovered will be medically retired/PDQ’d out post-haste?
Seems like a double-whammy way to devastate the ranks.
I’d guess not, Claw – at least not as a “blanket” policy. Seems to me there are a fair number of medical conditions that are disqualifying for initial entry that are not disqualifying for continued service if incurred while already serving.
I wouldn’t put it past some dirtbags at Army Human Resources Command (or as I call it, High Royalty Command) to do that. Less personnel means less work for them, so they’ll attack this with extreme fervor if it means reducing their own work load.
Hopefully someone at DA level is thinking about that up front to stop them. Not that I would bet money on it.
reminds me of the prohibition on donating blood for those of use who were stationed at various spots in Germany or the UK back in the ’70s and ’80s due to worries over mad cow (K-J, not PMS). Cost ’em 5 active donors from my family alone.
Tell me, for us it was 4 in my family and 4 in my wife’s family. Then between the wife and I there were 2 more added with our kids. So 10 in total between our families.
The blood donner ban is active again because of Mad Cow disease. I have B- and cant give it away according the Red Cross and CDC,
Category 4F?
I gave up my 2S and joined. When I asked the
DI why he treated RA’s worse than US’s he
said “because you asked for it, they didn’t.
Imagine if this were during “Vietnam Times” we
would have people scrambling for it in order to
avoid the draft.
All those cowards would not had fled to Canuckland to avoid the draft. There would have been Wuhu Flu parties just like the ones for measles when I was a kid.
Deleted wrong word on the phone: …have…. not had.
Woulda saved themselves a small fortune in high heels, lingerhe, and mini skirts too.
And on that note…
M*A*S*H, the TV show, was filmed by 20th Century Fox…
Which is now owned by Disney…
Which makes CPL Klinger an official Disney princess.
That is -funny-
I’m not sure what’s more funny to think about, their faces when someone told them “Carrie Fisher is a Disney Princess now!” or Cpl Klinger being a Disney Princess.
If this rule had been in place for the Asiatic Flu of 1957 we would not have been able to field an army to fight that war. That sucker wiped out my fifth grade class, hell it wiped out every telemetry school in america and most colleges that year. As one of the last in my class to catch it I watched my class drop like flies. eventually there were not enough kids or teachers left to keep the schools open.
Hopefully, as they research this disease ad learn more about development of anti-bodies they will reverse this permanent disqualification. If your body fights it off, your body will develop anti-bodies. While we don’t know for sure yet that this means you are immune from getting it in the future, it should give you a better chance. But I am not a medical professional.
This sounds like an idiotic implementation of a reasonable policy.
When I was at Ft Benning for my 2 month BNCOC our school 1SG warned all of us at every Friday safety brief that Benning was one of the few posts where the Army “warehoused” the soldiers that had HIV and we needed to wrap it up, don’t know if he was making that up, but it brings me to my next point.
I see this going the same route as HIV/AIDS, a ban on anyone joining who has had it and anyone who got it on active duty being retained unless they request a medical separation.
We got the same speech at FT Gordon in 1988.
I’ve seen a lot of otherwise perfectly qualified applicants booted off the med decks for some pretty fucking silly reasons.
This might actually exceed all of that.
If they were so mortified by potential respiratory damage (unlikely at best to the 17-25 crowd, barring other conditions which are already disqualifying) then why not have the folks in question get a PFT and a consult?
Dumb…
This won’t bode well for on production Recruiters, nor for the Army in general. May is usually when a lot of recent graduates that committed to the military rethink their decision and decide not to ship. Couple that with yet another disqualifier and USAREC is bound to have another losing year when it comes to accessions.
I wrote my first “quality” contract in May 2009. ASVAB score of 94, DLAB score 132, three years JROTC, Eagle Scout, and two years of college, signed up for an 18x contract. In other months and markets that would have gotten me quite a few points toward the Kindergarten-esque Recruiter Incentive Awards program. But nope, Baton Rouge Company finished about 2 for 23 that month, after taking a couple of dozen DEP losses.
I hated May and June, even as a Nuke recruiter, because the bag toters would be hiding this kid as an attrite since about March, all the while telling me they’re GTG.
And of course, since they’re 200 miles away and I’m down the hall, guess who had to answer to the Chief Recruiter?
Most soul-crushing job I ever had.
Guess we’ve come a long way since the doctor at MEPS telling you to turn your head and cough had a lit lucky strike hanging out of his mouth.
This totally does not make any sense at all. Sounds like a policy that was created by Xi Dau Peng, Boris Yabutnik, and Nancy Pelosi.