spoke to ABC News<\/a>. One of those sources said the actual number of cases and hospitalizations could be higher.<\/p>\nAn Air Force spokesperson confirmed the outbreak to ABC News.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the last three weeks, there has been a localized influenza outbreak among trainees at Basic Military Training,\u201d the spokesperson said in a statement. \u201cMedical professionals and Public Health officials have implemented mitigation measures to isolate and treat symptomatic trainees to reduce further exposure and continue to monitor the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The spokesperson added that symptomatic trainees are receiving antiviral medications, including Tamiflu, and will return to training once cleared by medical professionals.<\/p>\n
Vaccination policy change at the center of outbreak<\/p>\n
The outbreak follows a policy change announced in April by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who made the annual flu vaccine optional for all U.S. military personnel \u2014 both active duty and reserve. Previously, the vaccine had been mandatory.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur new policy is simple: If you, an American warrior entrusted to defend this nation, believe that the flu vaccine is in your best interest, then you are free to take it; you should. But we will not force you,\u201d Hegseth said.<\/p>\n
Hegseth had described the previous policy as \u201coverly broad and not rational.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the mandate was lifted, the flu vaccination rate among recruits at the San Antonio base has dropped to roughly 40%, down from nearly 100%, ABC News sources said.<\/p>\n
The Pentagon has since granted exceptions to the new policy for several branches and agencies. Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told ABC News that exceptions were approved for the Army, Navy, Air Force, National Security Agency and Defense Health Agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe decisions were based upon thorough risk assessments and are designed to maximize operational readiness, lethality, and force generation, while safeguarding at-risk populations,\u201d Parnell said.<\/p>\n
Recruit death under investigation<\/p>\n
The outbreak comes as ABC News reports the Air Force is also investigating the death of a recruit at the base.<\/p>\n
Keon McDaniel was in his sixth week of Basic Military Training when he suffered a medical emergency on June 12, according to ABC News. He was transported to Brooke Army Medical Center, where he later died.<\/p>\n
The Air Force said a comprehensive medical review is underway to determine the cause of the medical emergency. It remains unclear whether McDaniel\u2019s death is connected to the flu outbreak.<\/p>\n
ABC News\u2019 Dr. Jade Cobern, Luis Martinez and Mary Kekatos contributed to this report.<\/p>\n
Read also:<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BEXAR COUNTY, Texas \u2013 A flu outbreak is spreading among recruits at Lackland Air Force Base following the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[27009,584,41742,76057,2672,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-342400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-air-force","tag-health","tag-joint-base-san-antonio","tag-lackland-air-force-base","tag-military","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}