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The Pentagon has scrapped a ban announced earlier this month on military recruits who had previously contracted the coronavirus from entering the military, the Department of Defense said Thursday.
Matthew Donovan, the defense undersecretary for personnel and readiness, told reporters that he canceled the policy and reverted back to its previous process for accessing recruits, the Military Times reported. The Pentagon initially said it would implement an all-out ban on recruits previously infected with COVID-19 before favoring barring only those who had been hospitalized after contracting the virus.
“At the same time, we’re having our health professionals and our doctors and researchers take a look at that, come up with any recommendations that they’ll provide to me and the [Defense] secretary [Mark Esper]. And I think they’re almost done with that now,” Donovan said.
Moving forward, the military will review instances where a recruit had contracted COVID-19 and recovered on a case-by-case basis at the Military Entrance Processing Command (MEPS) locations in the recruit's home state and again when they report to basic training facilities.
"Any infectious disease we want to make sure they’re not infectious at the time... There’s a lot of unknowns about this virus right now," Donovan said. "Are there any long-term, lasting effects? That’s what our health care professionals are looking at right now and they’ll come up with that recommendation on if there’s [sic] any changes required to the accession standard.”
The military established protocols over several months as the pandemic gained a foothold in the United States in an effort to prevent an outbreak on military installations. Public health experts are not yet sure of the virus' long-term effects.
In a May 11 letter to Esper, Rep. Andy Biggs opposed the initial ban, saying it was critical the Pentagon "halt implementation of any related bureaucratic actions that threaten the honor to serve in the U.S. military."
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"If an individual can pass the Military Entrance Processing Station screening process -- despite a hospitalization for coronavirus -- they should be allowed to serve," Briggs wrote. "I agree that more research is needed to study the long-term effects of coronavirus on the human body. However, I do not think that the lack of research available warrants permanently disqualifying patriotic Americans from serving in the military."
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