SAN DIEGO — Blue Star families or immediate relatives of service members heard from the Nation's Chief medical adviser on COVID-19, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was asked a number of questions in a second virtual town hall, including concerns about military members on missions with little socially distancing to the hundreds of thousands receiving their PCS, or Permanent Change of Station orders.
"For those who are not vaccinated, the situation should be practicing the public health measures that we talk about literally every single day," said Dr. Fauci, who is the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
As for children getting the vaccine, Dr. Fauci said it's likely high school age teens will be vaccinated first, later this year, while elementary school students early next year.
"A lot of our families are asking us about long-term side effects, do we know enough about those?” said Kathy-Roth-Douquet, CEO of Blue Star Families.
Fauci said the likelihood of a late, long-term problem is vanishingly small.
The top question on military families’ minds was what I can do if my active duty spouse got the vaccine but no one else in our household has?
"When you have a vaccinated and unvaccinated person in the same house, there will be new CDC guidelines that will be coming out literally in a couple of days,” Fauci said.
The Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin showed pictures from visiting California Troops last week.
"They vaccinated people in Los Angeles and at a Navy base in San Diego. One soldier called it a bestowal of trust,” Austin said.
Koby Langley, the American Red Cross, Senior VP for Service to the Armed Forces asked another important question about the vaccine rollout time lime for Blue Star families.
Lt. Gen. Ronald Place, the Director of Defense Health Agency answered, “Similar to what we've seen from the CDC, we have those tiers, and that goes for service members, family members, retirees, et cetera."
See more about Blue Star Families and the push for military vaccinations: