Â鶹ŮÓÅ

One-third of US military service members eligible to receive a Covid-19 vaccination have opted not to, defense officials said Monday as they announced the Department of Defense is nearing 1 million vaccinations delivered. Cautioning that it's still "very early data," Maj. Gen. Jeff Taliaferro, vice director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday, "The vaccine is the right thing to do, it's clearly safe for service members." (Kaufman and Liebermann, 2/17)

To get out of ninth-grade science period one recent Friday, the King twins had an excuse that is so very 2021.Alexandra and Isabelle, 14, had to miss class — including a test — because they were participating in an actual science experiment: a clinical trial of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine to evaluate whether the shot is effective and safe in children ages 12 through 17. (Hoffman, 2/16)

People experiencing homelessness are especially vulnerable to disease and often live in close quarters. Reaching them for COVID-19 vaccination is crucial, public health officials say, yet also presents some unique challenges. Addresses and phone numbers change constantly. Few of the people affected have reliable Internet access. Also, the pandemic put a halt to many mobile clinics and other outreach efforts to homeless encampments; in the meantime, patients scattered or avoided the clinic for fear of infection. (Noguchi, 2/17)

Mark Shepherd got off the phone with the public health department and began reaching out to members of the Henderson County Rescue Squad. It was early January. The volunteers, all emergency medical professionals, were needed at The Laurels of Hendersonville, an assisted living facility about 20 miles outside Asheville. (Critchfield, 2/18)

For a decade, Jennifer Crow has taken care of her elderly parents, who have multiple sclerosis. After her father had a stroke in December, the family got serious in its conversations with a retirement community — and learned that one service it offered was Covid-19 vaccination. (Kwon, 2/18)

A waitress [was] fired on Monday after, she said, she resisted getting vaccinated out of concern that doing so could hurt her chances of becoming pregnant. Over the weekend, the restaurant, the Red Hook Tavern, required that its employees get vaccinated and then terminated the waitress, Bonnie Jacobson, when she asked for time to study the vaccine’s possible effects on fertility. (Haag, 2/17)

Fran Goldman had spent weeks glued to her tablet and on the phone with her local health department before she was finally able to schedule a coronavirus vaccine appointment last weekend. So when the 90-year-old woke up on Sunday to find 10 inches of snow covering the unplowed Seattle roads, she realized she only had two options: Rescheduling her shot or trekking by foot for three miles. She chose the latter. (Salcedo, 2/17)

Almost three-quarters of Americans said they are confident the COVID-19 vaccine will be widely available in their state by the end of the summer, according to a poll released Wednesday. (Coleman, 2/17)

KHN: In Search Of The Shot

Too little covid vaccine and too great a demand: That’s what KHN readers from around the country detail in their often exasperating quest to snag a shot, although they are often clearly eligible under their local guidelines and priority system. Public health officials say the supply is growing and will meet demand in several months, but, for now, readers’ experiences show how access is limited. Some savvy readers report no problem getting in line for the vaccine, but others say that balky application processes and lack of information have stymied their efforts. Their unedited reports are a good snapshot of the mixed situation around the country. (2/17)