The US military is prepared to deploy field hospitals to Seattle and New York, localities experiencing the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the United States, Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters on Monday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd March, 2020) The US military is prepared to deploy field hospitals to Seattle and New York, localities experiencing the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the United States, Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters on Monday.
"We are looking at deploying our field hospitals, which include the hospital, the equipment and medical professionals," Esper said during a briefing. "We have put on what we call PTDO - Prepare to Deploy Orders - five such units. Right now I anticipate sending a hospital to Seattle and a hospital to New York City. Beyond that, once that is confirmed, we will look at sending to other places."
Concurrently, the Pentagon is sending two 1,000-bed hospital ships to New York and Los Angeles and military engineers are set to convert hotels, dormitories and other buildings into temporary medical facilities across the country. The Defense Department has also made available to civilians its 16 labs that perform 6,000 coronavirus tests daily.
Esper admitted that the military cannot meet assistance requests they are receiving from local authorities.
"I have spoken with seven, nine, ten governors so far. Each one of them has had requests for field hospitals... ships. We clearly can't meet everybody's needs with what we have in our inventory," he said. "What we are talking about is the need for thousands of beds. We can provide in a field hospital 248."
US military medics are expected to treat conventional cases, allowing their civilian colleagues to focus resources on taking care of patients diagnosed with coronavirus.
