JBLM Listed Among First Military Vaccination Sites In America

LAKEWOOD, WA — Joint Base Lewis McChord has been named as one of a dozen military sites in America that will receive the first batch of the coronavirus vaccine.

The Department of Defense confirmed Wednesday that they had selected 12 continental military sites, including JBLM, to receive a portion of their 43,875 doses of the COVID-19. DOD leadership says they selected the sites based on three criteria: how well the recipients could store the vaccine, the local population and priority personnel, and if the site had enough medical personnel to administer the vaccine and monitor the vaccine recipients.

The full list of vaccination sites in the continental United States includes:

• Madigan Army Medical Center, Joint Base Lewis McChord, WA
• Willford Hall, Joint Base San Antonio, TX
• Darnall Army Medical Center, Fort Hood, TX
• Womack Army Medical Center, Fort Bragg, NC
• Navy Branch Health Clinic, Naval Air Station, Jacksonville, FL
• Base Alameda Health Services, U.S. Coast Guard Base, Alameda, CA
• Naval Medical Center, San Diego, CA
• Naval Hospital Pensacola, Pensacola, FL
• Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, MD
• Portsmouth Naval Medical Center, Portsmouth, VA
• Indiana National Guard, Franklin, IN
• New York National Guard Medical Command, Watervliet, NY

In addition, four sites outside the continental U.S. will also receive vaccines: Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, Allgood Army Community Hospital at Camp Humphreys in Korea, the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, and the Kadena Medical Facility in Japan.

Now that they've outlined where their first round of vaccines will go, the DOD says they are waiting until the FDA finalizes their authorization for the COVID-19 for emergency use, then they will begin shipping the doses out.

Once destributed, the DOD says the vaccines will be used not only for service members, but dependents, retirees, civilian employees and some DOD contract personnel.

Read the full vaccine distribution plan from the DOD.