WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th April, 2020) The Department of Defense is preparing for the entire state of Texas and the cities of New Orleans and Detroit to become "hot spots" for the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-9), Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Thomas McCaffery said on Friday.
The Defense Department was preparing its medical resources and personnel to deal with "future hotspots [such as] New Orleans, Detroit and Texas," Caffery told a Defense Department news conference.
McCaffery acknowledged that most of the beds' capacity for patients in the US Navy hospital ship Comfort and in the Jacob Javits Center in New York City remained unused after the Defense Department had rushed to deploy the facilities following urgent pleas from the city and state governments of New York.
"One of the things we are looking at [is] possibly moving more personnel from the Javitz Center and the Comfort into [New York City] hospitals," he said.
The Defense Department had already moved around 400 military doctors, nurses and other medical personnel into regular New York City hospitals, McCaffery added.
