Defense Department lifts mask mandate for fully vaccinated personnel

The Defense Department (DOD) is dropping its mask mandate for fully vaccinated personnel, a policy in line with recently updated Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance.

In a memo released Friday, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said that DOD personnel who are two weeks out from their final dose of a COVID-19 vaccine “are no longer required to wear a mask indoors or outdoors at DoD facilities.”

The memo comes a day after the CDC announced that fully vaccinated individuals no longer need to wear masks indoors or outdoors, except where required by law or other rules and regulations, such as on airplanes.

Hicks’s memo said that Defense Department personnel should continue following CDC guidance on when masks still need to be worn, such as in airports.

She also said that personnel who are not fully vaccinated “should continue to follow applicable DoD mask guidance, including continuing to wear masks indoors.”

Commanders and supervisors are also allowed to make exceptions to the memo “as necessary to ensure a safe workforce,” it said.

It’s unclear how the department will enforce its new policy. Hicks’s memo said commanders and supervisors “should not ask about an employee’s vaccination status,” nor should they use information about someone’s vaccination status to “make decisions about how and when employees will report to a workplace instead of teleworking.”

In its own news release Friday on the new Defense Department policy, U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) said personnel affiliated with the command “are encouraged to carry vaccination cards or equivalent documentation for the purpose of contact tracing.”

“Commanders at all levels will determine appropriate operational risk related to USFK updated mask wear guidance in an indoor work environment in order to determine risk for COVID-19 transmission,” the release said.

As of Wednesday, 614,330 service members and 258,476 Defense Department civilians were fully vaccinated, according to the latest department data.

Another 257,666 service members and 90,575 have been partially vaccinated, according to the data.

Pentagon officials have said they will not mandate troops get the COVID-19 vaccine, despite a host of other inoculations being required, while it is being administered under an emergency use authorization.