The Navy will now allow sailors who did not get the COVID vaccine to be deployed.

“COVID-19 vaccination status shall not be a consideration in assessing individual service member suitability for deployment or other operational missions,” a new Navy memo said.

About a month ago, the Navy announced it would stop separating sailors who refused to comply with the vaccine mandate, which has now been rescinded, as Navy Times reported.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said the Navy will continue to monitor COVID levels as unvaccinated sailors return to the force.

“Particularly, if there’s a new strain of COVID, we want to make sure we have enough of the supplies on board, like masks and those kinds of things, so if we have to revert back to the way we were doing things before the vaccine, that we’re able to do that fairly quickly,” Gilday said.

Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Daniel Tillie