Army approves 20 out of 8,000 COVID vaccine religious exemption requests

The U.S. Army has approved just 20 COVID-19 vaccine religious exemption requests out of 8,000 servicemembers who applied.

This means that the Army has approved just 0.25% of permanent religious exemption requests, data show.

The Army approved permanent medical exemptions at a slightly better rate. Of the 1,100 medical exemption requests, 34 have been approved, meaning that the Army has approved about 3% of all requests as of Friday.

Meanwhile, there have been nearly 140,000 COVID cases in the Army, according to Department of Defense data.

In the entire U.S. military, out of about 427,000 COVID cases, 95 service members have died from the virus.

The Army began announcing separations of regular soldiers in March due to their refusal to take the COVID vaccine.

Starting July 1, members of the Army National Guard and Army Reserve who refused to take the COVID vaccine were not allowed to "participate in federally funded drills, training, and other duty nor receive payment or retirement credit," the Army stated.