Dec. 3 (UPI) -- The Navy will prioritize health care workers, base first responders and safety personnel when the Department of Defense receives COVID-19 vaccines later this month.
The military is expected to receive both the Pfizer and the Moderna COVID-19 vaccines within the next three weeks and the services are working to prioritize their distribution.
Speaking at a Senate Armed Services subcommittee Wednesday, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday said the Navy will prioritize "people likely to come in contact with people who are infected" for the vaccine rollout.
After that, the Navy will work to vaccinate sailors in strategic forces as well as those set to deploy within the next three months.
Gilday also said the Navy will adapt what it learned from having to prioritize COVID testing this year and apply the same principles to the vaccine rollout.
"We have a good count of what those numbers are, and if there's anything we are really good at, it's mass immunization in the U.S. military," Gilday said.
Other services have not announced their prioritization plans.
DoD officials have said they will follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations to distribute the first shots to health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities, and Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said the DoD is likely to provide an update on the department's vaccine plans in the next few days.
Vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna are being reviewed for emergency-use authorization and could start being administered this month, with 10 locations across the DoD set to receive the vaccine once it's approved.
As of Wednesday the Department of Defense had recorded a total of 120,398 coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic, up from 117,736 Monday.
Of those, 80,592 have been among military members, 20,453 among DoD civilian employees, 11,954 among dependents and 7,399 among contractors.
The Army has recorded the highest number of cases, with 29,094.
