The Pentagon has banned survivors of COVID-19 from enlisting in the military, according to a government memo released this week.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1307857
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1307857
looks like the US military is going to be shrinking soon
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But they allow bone spurs now right?
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But they’re immune! Right?
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Asked why current cadets are being forced to return to West Point to attend Trump’s graduation speech even though many of them may also be survivors, a spokesman said:
“Who do you think you are, Axl Rose?”
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Less to this than meets the eye. We don’t yet know any of the longer-term effects of this, and with indications of things like organ damage and reduced lung capacity, exactly the sort of thing that could result in recruit deaths in training.
Probably smart to have a pause while we figure things out.
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Interesting. What’s the policy on serving personnel who test positive, or get sick and recover?
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At first I thought “this is poorly phrased, but makes sense as an interim measure while the science around Covid-19 resurgence remains an even slightly gray area”. Then I realized this only applies to people hospitalized due to Covid-19. That makes very little sense, as any latent risk of someone being a viral “reservoir” applies whether or not an individual was hospitalized. (to be clear, there’s very little evidence this is the case, as it is with something herpes viruses, say. But since it hasn’t been definitively ruled out, I could see some logic)
So basically this doesn’t make much sense. Organ damage and similar disabling effects would be clear from other aspects of the physical; it’s not like renal failure shows up two years later. This is probably as simple as kicking the can down the road, and telling recruiters “you don’t have to make your own decision on these folks, just defer them”
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It’s not about any latent risk to others, it’s about whether that individual, who was sick enough to be hospitalized, may have other invisible damage that would impact their ability to be physically fit for the service.
In a worst-case scenario, you’d have someone die in basic training because of reduced lung capacity and not being able to make it through all the physical activity there.
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I understand, but don’t agree – a physical is part of the recruitment process. If they have reduced lung capacity (say), then they just fail the physical.
Also they didn’t actually give their reasoning for this, which is why we’re all speculating on the rationale. 
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Gonna be pretty tough to maintain when everyone in the country will have had it.
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Only applies to those who have been hospitalized for it, so a much smaller subset.
We don’t know that they would, or that it would be evident enough for that. Those are pretty cursory things overall, that’s why you do have recruits occasionally drop dead in training for undiscovered conditions of all types.
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Yeah, I’m not sure how they will square this with Trump and the GOP’s “herd immunity” policy that they are pushing with their reopen strategy. “COVID-19 Survivor” is unfortunately likely to be the majority of the population by the end of the year.
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Oh… my mistake. Seems like most of those folks are beyond enlistment age anyway. So even slimmer.
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Given it’s success rate since WW2 it should declare bankruptcy and emerge as Park Rangers.
The cost of the Vietnam war, which we lost our ass in, 1 trillion in today’s dollars. Conservatively. 56,000 Americans dead and millions of Southeastern Asian’s dead. A loss.
Iraq and Afghanistan: 5 trillion and counting. 4500 Dead Americans and 100’s of thousands of dead civilians. One loss in Afghanistan and de-facto loss in Iraq. Nothing to show for either.
Forgot Korea: 256 billion bucks and 34,000 dead Americans. Loss ( masked as a draw )
No biz would stay afloat with a record of failure like that. Shrink it.
For those offended: I’m a combat veteran of the Vietnam War. I left a lung in a rice paddy and am missing part of a metacarpal bone in my left hand. I earned my right to speak.
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Not a mistake, the headlines are kinda misleading, makes it look like it’s everyone. But in practice, it’ll be a relative handful of people.
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We hope!
Seriously though, I agree. This smells more like bureaucratic complication-avoidance then anything, and with the small numbers of recruitment-age Americans who are hospitalized it’s not much of an impact. I just wish they had explained themselves a bit better
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Yeah, the headline is broad but reading in it does say anyone hospitalized and I missed it.
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Poorly written title.
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I don’t have any experience in enlistment process, but this line sounds like it doesn’t just apply to the hospitalized cases:
- During the medical history interview or examination, a history of COVID-19, confirmed by either a laboratory test or clinician diagnosis, is permanently disqualifying,
Granted, they could always just change the criteria again, but at the moment it sounds like having a positive test or diagnosis is disqualifying even if you have no lingering injuries or disabilities from COVID-19.
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