Among the frontline health care workers to get the COVID-19 vaccine this week were about 200 members of the Indiana National Guard, even though many of them may be leaving the state’s long-term care facilities in the coming weeks.
“Indiana was chosen as one of the first pilot states by the Department of Defense to participate in the COVID-19 vaccination along with New York,” Brigadier General Dale Lyles, Adjutant General of the Indiana National Guard said during state officials’ COVID-19 press conference Wednesday. “And so our soldiers and airmen are actually performing frontline care worker duties today and have been, basically, for the last nine months.”
The Indiana National Guard says the program is separate from the shipments of vaccine for civilian health care workers.
Lyles said guardsmen are currently deployed at all 534 of the state’s long-term care facilities. “Our plan is to start moving soldiers and airmen out of those facilities on or about the end of December,” he added. “However, we will keep a small cohort of soldiers and airmen back to help with the most critical facilities that remain and that need help.”
In addition to those helping in long-term care facilities, the guardsmen who got the vaccine also included those deployed to COVID-19 testing sites, protective equipment distribution warehouses, and food banks.
