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Five Department of Defense facilities will participate in the Phase 3 trial of a COVID-19 vaccine, the Pentagon announced Thursday. ... The upcoming trial will take place at Naval Medical Center in San Diego, Joint Base San Antonio, Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center in San Diego, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and Fort Belvoir Community Hospital in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. "The Department of Defense continues to play a key role in the development of a potential COVID-19 vaccine," Tom McCaffery, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said in a statement. (McCurdy, 9/3)

The military medical facilities chosen in Texas, California and the Washington D.C. area were among dozens of locations across the country selected to participate in Phase III testing of drug maker AstraZeneca’s AZD1222, one of four vaccine candidates undergoing testing. In Phase III, thousands of volunteers are given the potential vaccines to study its effectiveness and safety, according to the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Dickstein, 9/3)

“The Department of Defense continues to play a key role in the development of a potential COVID-19 vaccine,” Tom McCaffery, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, said in the release. “Now that vaccines have passed the first phases of testing for safety, dosing and response, we are ready to move into the next phase where volunteers are needed to join large clinical studies. We are excited to have several sites identified to support the next steps in the vaccine development process,” McCaffery, said in the press release. (McGorry and Tomlinson, 9/3)

Service members might not be at the front of the line to receive the coronavirus vaccine when it is ready, unless they are health care workers or at high risk of contracting the disease, according to a document outlining the possible order of distribution. A four-phased approach for distributing a coronavirus vaccine in the United States has been recommended by the Committee on Equitable Allocation of Vaccine for the Novel Coronavirus and the approach was laid out in “Discussion Draft of the Preliminary Framework for Equitable Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccine,” which was published Tuesday by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine. (Kenney, 9/2)

A 58-year-old Army reservist from Florida is the seventh service member, and fourth reservist, to die from the coronavirus, according to an Army Reserve official. Sgt. 1st Class Clifford R. Gooding from Gulfport, Fla., died Aug. 28 in Largo from complications related to the coronavirus, Lt. Col. Simon Flake, a spokesman for the Army Reserve, said Thursday in a statement. (Kenney, 9/3)

The Department of Veterans Affairs has announced plans for randomized testing of 700 veterans on the effectiveness of convalescent plasma in treating COVID-19, amid an open feud between public health agencies on its therapeutic value. (Sisk, 9/3)

Patients and staff at the District’s main hospital for veterans were unable to drink the center’s water or use it for showering and hand-washing on Wednesday after a patient tested positive for legionella infection, the Department of Veterans Affairs said in a statement. (Fadulu, 9/3)