{"id":342964,"date":"2021-04-27T06:01:55","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T20:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=342964"},"modified":"2021-04-27T06:01:55","modified_gmt":"2021-04-26T20:01:55","slug":"us-army-medical-team-administers-covid-19-vaccines-in-guam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/us-army-medical-team-administers-covid-19-vaccines-in-guam\/","title":{"rendered":"US Army medical team administers COVID-19 vaccines in Guam"},"content":{"rendered":"
Pfc. Ethan Van Veldhuizen, a combat medic specialist assigned to 25th Infantry Division, administers a COVID-19 vaccine in support of the Guam Department of Public Health and Social Services COVID-19 vaccination team at a vaccination clinic held at the University of Guam Calvo Field House.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANGILAO, Guam<\/strong>\u2014A team of U.S. Army medical professionals began administering COVID-19 vaccine doses to members of the local community last April 16.<\/p>\n

The team consists of a medical officer and combat medic specialists assigned to the 25th Infantry Division at U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii. As part of a scheduled 30-day mission assignment, the soldiers are bolstering Department of Public Health and Social Services vaccination teams in their campaign to immunize 50% of Guam\u2019s adult population by May 1, 2021.<\/p>\n

Following the medical team\u2019s arrival, the soldiers joined DPHSS staff to review local procedures and prepare to administer COVID-19 vaccine doses to community members.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t be more proud of my team and what we have accomplished,\u201d said 2nd Lt. Shelby Lynch, officer in charge of the medical team. \u201cIt was clear that we could make a real difference here and all of us are excited to be a part of that. It is an honor to work with the local staff and community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sgt. Diana Sandoval, a combat medic specialist assigned to 25th Infantry Division, administers a COVID-19 vaccine in support of the Guam Department of Public Health and Social Services COVID-19 vaccination team at a vaccination clinic held at the University of Guam Calvo Field House.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lynch and her team integrated with Guam National Guard and DPHSS medical professionals to administer thousands of vaccines at the University of Guam Calvo Field House each day. In their first three days of vaccinations, the soldiers of the 25th Infantry Division administered over 2,600 vaccines to the local community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have nothing but respect and admiration for what these soldiers have done and continue to do,\u201d said Rear Adm. John Menoni, commander, Joint Region Marianas. \u201cThey showed up and instantly pitched into the fight against COVID-19, directly contributing to Guam\u2019s push toward its 50% and 80% immunization benchmarks.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

DPHSS and the Guam National Guard began vaccinations at UOG in January, initially vaccinating hundreds of people daily. The Hawaii-based U.S. Army medical team has helped maintain a daily vaccination rate of over 2000 doses in the critical weeks before the May 1 goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are so happy to have them here,\u201d said Capt. Denise Chargualaf, commander, Task Force Medical, Joint Task Force 671, Guam National Guard. \u201cWith the 25th team now onboard, they have dramatically increased our numbers of vaccinations given. It\u2019s has been so smooth with them. It\u2019s almost like they\u2019ve been here with us since January when we started Operation Liberate Guam.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, through U.S. Army Pacific, remains committed to providing continued, flexible Department of Defense support to the Federal Emergency Management Agency as part of the whole-of-government response to COVID-19. (PR)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANGILAO, Guam\u2014A team of U.S. Army medical professionals began administering COVID-19 vaccine doses to members…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":342967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[51,4469],"class_list":["post-342964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-guam","tag-mangilao"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}