Pentagon officials confirmed Sunday that the ongoing stoppage of traffic caused by a grounded container ship in the Suez Canal would affect the movement of U.S. military vessels, but stressed that the Defense Department had alternative means of supporting operations in the area.

In a statement to The Hill, a Navy spokesperson wouldn’t comment on specific impacts the stoppage was having on U.S. defense or naval capabilities, but noted that the issues it posed would only grow the longer it took Egyptian officials to move the 1,300 foot-long ship from the narrow canal.

“We are not going to talk about specific operational impacts. The Suez Canal is an essential maritime choke point, and the longer passage is suspended, the more impact it will have to civilian and military transits. However, we have alternate capabilities to mitigate impact and support to our operations in U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility throughout any extended blockage,” said Rebecca Rebarich, a public affairs officer with the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, U.S. 5th Fleet.

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The Pentagon’s comments come as some experts have warned that the growing backlog of ships on both sides of the canal — which now surpasses 300 vessels — raise new challenges including the inability of some businesses to afford the extra time at sea as well as risks from piracy.

“[I]f more and more ships are going along the coast of Africa because of this incident, security arrangements would need to be tightened” around areas where piracy is known to occur, especially the waters surrounding Somalia and Yemen, said Paul Sullivan, an international security expert and professor at the National Defense University in an interview with Voice of America.

“If there is a need to deploy any ships from various locales due to a problem in the Gulf area response times could be effected. This could also effect response times to the Indian Ocean etc.,” he added in an emailed statement to The Hill, before continuing: “It is time to rethink and bolster international security arrangements related to these choke points. They are called choke points for a reason.”

“This would potentially give pirates and others with ill intent more targets of opportunities. This might further draw down in the capacities of many coast guards and Navies.”

Efforts to remove the stranded ship stretched into the sixth day on Sunday. Egyptian officials working with experts from several other countries have touted the limited success of their efforts so far, including the restoration of power to the vessel, though the massive ship remains stuck in sand and rock blocking all canal traffic in both directions.

–Updated at 6:00 p.m.

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German officials on Saturday announced that the country will begin distributing its first doses of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine next month following the country’s delayed rollout and reports of distribution issues across Europe. 

German Health Minister Jens Spahn said in an online event Saturday that the country is set to receive a shipment of about 275,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson inoculation the week of April 12, Reuters reported. 

“It will only be a small delivery at first,” Spahn admitted, adding, “because we have been waiting a long time for the first delivery from J&J – we will get the first deliveries of the vaccine in mid-April, and it will then be ramped up to millions of doses, as is the case with all deliveries.”

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The announcement comes after the European union earlier this month officially cleared the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for emergency use for people 18 years and older, making it the fourth shot to be approved by the EU following the vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Moderna. 

According to Reuters, Germany expects to receive about 15 million doses from the other three suppliers in addition to the initial small amount of doses from Johnson & Johnson. 

The vaccine distribution plans are a welcomed update for the country after The Associated Press reported this week that just about 9.5 percent of Germany’s population had received their first dose of the coronavirus vaccine, compared to more than 50 percent of the United Kingdom’s population. 

Distribution was interrupted this month as Germany and several other European countries temporarily halted the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, developed in partnership with Oxford University, due to concerns that the inoculation was linked to blood clots. 

However, Germany has since resumed use of the AstraZeneca shot after the EU’s European Medicines Agency (EMA) said that while it could not completely rule out the possibility of blood clots, the vaccine was overall safe and effective to use, and that the potential costs of the vaccine were far outweighed by the benefits of protecting people from COVID-19. 

The distribution delays have come as Germany also faces a new wave of coronavirus infections, with the AP this week reporting 108 weekly cases for every 100,000 residents. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday abandoned plans for a five-day shutdown that would have gone through Easter after she faced pushback from citizens. 

However, Merkel argued that without the Easter shutdown, the plan she and the country’s 16 state governors had come up with still offered a “framework” to help combat the new wave of coronavirus infections.

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