YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - Youngstown Air Reserve Station (YARS) announced on Monday, Sept. 13 that it will be mandating vaccines for all Individual Mobilization Augmentees (IMAs) and Participating Individual Ready Reserves (PIRRs).

Lieutenant General, Richard W. Scobee sent a message to the field stating that all Reserve Citizen Airmen will be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021. The statement from Lt. General Scobee is as follows:

"As a key factor in our readiness and war fighting mission, the health and wellbeing of our Reserve Citizen Airmen is of the utmost importance to me, my staff and our nation's defense. Many of you have chosen to receive the COVID-19 vaccine voluntarily in an effort to protect yourselves, your families and your wingmen. Thank you. In accordance with Secretary of the Air Force, Frank Kendall's guidelines for the COVID-19 vaccine, I now intend for all our military Reserve Citizen Airmen to be fully vaccinated by Dec. 2, 2021. Our medical personnel are equipped with the approved Pfizer vaccine to administer to our Airmen during our next UTA weekend. I expect all of our Airmen to fall into one of four categories by the Dec. 2 deadline:

1) Fully vaccinated

2) Actively participating/informing/educating in getting fully vaccinated

3) Approved exemption or eligible exemption in progress

4) Decline vaccination, which is incompatible with continued military service

I believe most of you will be in the first two categories, and we will continue to Fly, Fight and Win wherever our nation needs us."

Airmen are required to be fully vaccinated by Dec. 2 regardless of whether they are on active or inactive duty. Anyone who is unvaccinated by the deadline will be denied transfer to the Individual Ready Reserve. 

All unvaccinated Airmen's ARCNet records will turn yellow if not vaccinated by Nov. 2 and will turn red if unvaccinated by the Dec. 2 deadline. Once fully vaccinated, ARCNet records will turn green to indicate such. If an Airman remains red, what happens next depends on their Active Component unit in conjunction with any further guidance YARS receives. 

More information can be found here.