The Department of Defense remains in Phase One of distribution.
“There is a very prescribed roll out,” said Captain Shelley Perkins, commanding officer of Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton. She is also a surgeon and was part of the first wave of healthcare workers there to get the vaccine.
The coronavirus has been impacting military hospitals much like civilian hospitals. Capt. Perkins said they are taking care of a lot of sick patients, “And it seems like the numbers just keep increasing.”
We know it’s just that extra level of protection that will allow our staff to do the job that they have to do to take care of our patients,” said Capt. Smith.
The Navy will hold a single, six-month physical fitness assessment cycle during calendar year 2021, allowing the service to resume fitness testing while limiting Sailor exposure to COVID-19.
The cycle was announced in NAVADMIN 304/20, released Nov. 18. The message also detailed rollout plans for the forearm plank, which will replace the curl-up, and the 2000-meter row as a new optional cardio event.
âShifting the PFA cycle to March allows Navy to execute the PFA after the primary influenza season, leveraging outdoor venues as the weather warms,â Vice Adm. John B Nowell, Jr., the chief of naval personnel, wrote in the message.
The shift also âacknowledges the fact that while vaccines and therapeutics are expected to be available, their timing and impact are unknown.â
The previous CFEMP instruction was released in 2017, after a comprehensive review of the at-sea collisions of the USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) and the USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62), which resulted in the death of 17 Sailors and more than 50 Sailors injured.
The new CFEMP instruction is aimed at sustaining the culture shift that has been occurring within the surface force that changes the mindset of work and watchbill being two separate things. Instead, the goal is to combine the two activities so it better supports the individual, according to Dr. John P. Cordle, SURFLANT’s human factors engineer.
“With this instruction, we wanted to provide commanding officers and ships with a means to better manage their workday and watch rotation to improve crew endurance,” said Cordle.