{"id":26514,"date":"2021-12-20T15:28:13","date_gmt":"2021-12-20T15:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/12\/20\/veterans-affairs-covid-cases-since-start-of-pandemic-top-400000\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T06:35:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T06:35:19","slug":"veterans-affairs-covid-cases-since-start-of-pandemic-top-400000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/veterans\/2021\/12\/20\/veterans-affairs-covid-cases-since-start-of-pandemic-top-400000\/","title":{"rendered":"Veterans Affairs COVID cases since start of pandemic top 400,000"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Total <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/coronavirus\/\" target=\"_blank\">coronavirus cases<\/a> within the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/veterans\/2021\/12\/02\/va-wont-fire-employees-for-refusing-the-covid-vaccine-until-after-the-holidays\/\" target=\"_blank\">Department of Veterans Affairs<\/a> health care system since the start of the pandemic in America topped 400,000 over the weekend amid another national surge in infections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sunday marked 656 days since the first COVID-19 case was found in a patient of the Veteran Health Administration. As of Sunday evening, at least 401,010 patients and staffers had confirmed cases, with 100,000 of those coming in the last four months alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At least 17,381 have died from coronavirus complications over the last 21 months, including 236 VA employees. That equates to about 26 veteran deaths a day connected to the virus since the start of March 2020 in the VA health care system alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2021\/12\/17\/dishonorable-discharges-for-covid-vaccine-refusal-off-the-table-as-military-separations-begin\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"154\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/6490814.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">Dishonorable discharges for COVID vaccine refusal off the table as military separations begin<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">Only discharges of honorable or general under honorable conditions will be allowed under the new defense authorization bill.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Active cases of the virus among patients rose sharply this summer and again in recent weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">About 10,000 cases are currently being tracked across 139 VA medical centers around the country. That number had been as low as 6,000 cases in early October and 1,400 cases in late June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Initial vaccination rates have also continued to slow down in recent months. VA officials vaccinated about 3 million individuals between early February and the end of June but only about 1.1 million individuals since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The VA medical system does not serve every veteran in America, and many veterans who are eligible may still receive health care from both the federal system and private-sector clinics. As such, VA\u2019s pandemic stats do not fully encompass the impact of the virus on all veterans in America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But VA runs the largest single health care system in the country, and the challenges posed by the large number of cases among VA hospitals echoes the pressures on the entire American medical community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said that more than 50.6 million Americans \u2014 about one in every seven U.S. citizens \u2014 has contracted COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. Last week, White House officials commemorated the 800,000th American death linked to the virus in the past 22 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/education-transition\/2021\/12\/16\/student-vets-taking-remote-classes-next-semester-will-still-get-full-gi-bill-benefits-thanks-to-new-plan\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/2358105.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">Student vets taking remote classes next semester will still get full GI Bill benefits thanks to new plan<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">Pandemic protections for GI Bill students were set to expire on Dec. 21.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Veterans medical facilities have worked to resume pre-pandemic operations in recent months, with fewer restrictions on visitors and resumption of nonemergency procedures at most locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Department leaders have required all employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19, a move that VA Secretary Denis McDonough has said is meant to ensure the safety and confidence of patients in using the health care system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">McDonough has also said he has not considered requiring all VA patients to be vaccinated in order to use department medical facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">.<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/DeptVetAffairs?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@DeptVetAffairs<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/coronavirus?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#coronavirus<\/a> update for Dec. 19 (656 days since 1st case): Total VA cases topped 400K this weekend. Here&#39;s a quick timeline of that long trend line &#8212;<br>* Case 1, 3\/4\/20<br>* Case 100K, 11\/24\/20<br>* Case 200K, 1\/24\/21<br>* Case 300K, 8\/18\/21<br>* Case 400K, 12\/18\/21 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/4MBhe3MTiG\">pic.twitter.com\/4MBhe3MTiG<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Leo Shane III (@LeoShane) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/LeoShane\/status\/1472778417636524035?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 20, 2021<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The last 100,000 coronavirus cases in the VA system have come in just four months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":54487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":19,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[67,100,23,93,12,25,68,19],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3334],"class_list":["post-26514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coronavirus","category-daily-news-roundup","category-home","category-middle-column","category-news","category-newsletters","category-pentagon-congress","category-veterans"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"UQK63FOIERCXLAWUVUYPTLRFNI","arc_canonical_url":"\/veterans\/2021\/12\/20\/veterans-affairs-covid-cases-since-start-of-pandemic-top-400000\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Veterans Affairs COVID cases since start of pandemic top 400,000 - Army Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The last 100,000 coronavirus cases in the VA system have come in just four months.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Veterans Affairs COVID cases since start of pandemic top 400,000\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The last 100,000 coronavirus cases in the VA system have come in just four months.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" 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