Naval Academy offers looser liberty if more students get COVID booster

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Naval Academy offers looser liberty if more students get COVID booster
Posted on 2/2/2022 at 11:25:12 by Will Croom

U.S. Naval Academy leadership last week offered midshipmen the tantalizing prospect of looser liberty restrictions for the long holiday weekend in exchange for getting the COVID-19 vaccine booster shot, according to an internal email obtained by Navy Times.

In an email to the academy�s student body � known as the Brigade of Midshipmen � sent Friday morning, leadership promised students freer liberty guidelines based on the percentage of mids who got their third jab.

�Based on the continued analysis of the testing results � the current level of mids in ISO, and the current level of mids who are boosted or post 1 Dec COVID positive, I am prepared to offer the following reward to the ENTIRE Brigade based on our booster level at the end of the day today,� Marine Corps Col. J.P. McDonough, the commandant of midshipmen, wrote.

While mids are prohibited from indoor dining and bars, McDonough�s email pledged that mids could dine indoors and go to bars in accordance with local regulations if more than 94 percent of the student body members got their booster.

Other liberty perks included getting to wear civilian clothes in certain situations and overnight liberty on Sunday ahead of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

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For the first violation, mids face demerits, the loss of a weekend of liberty when it is restored and an additional seven days of restrictions when they are eased.
McDonough did not respond to a Navy Times email seeking comment.

But according to other academy officials, the liberty incentives boosted the booster take rate.

As of Jan. 7, 71% of the brigade�s roughly 4,400 midshipmen had gotten their booster, according to academy spokeswoman Cmdr. Alana Garas.

�After a vaccine booster evolution conducted last Friday � that number increased to 87 percent,� Garas said Wednesday in an email to Navy Times. Based on that percentage � and despite the increase �students didn�t earn the indoor dining and bars, a liberty radius beyond 35 miles or overnights.