Is this who wants to be a millionaire . It is running a lot better right now. Phone,ave folks on the is that right . What i will do is for all of the folks on the phone, this is ryan mccarthy. I will start with some opening comments. Q a we will do an open up to answer questions. Weve got to get out of here no later than 1600 and get back to the office. Let me make a couple remarks. Thank you for coming. We are trying to bring an update on the covid19 response efforts to protect our people, maintain Mission Readiness and support the government effort. To provide these updates as routinely as we can. We will work out a rhythm that is appropriate. Our goal is to be as transparent as possible and keep an open line of communication about what the army is doing. On march 19, currently the u. S. Army has 45 cases. This number includes 21 soldiers, six da civilians, eight family members, and 10 contractors. Crisis,ng in times of helping restore peace in times of chaos, and organizing against threat is what the army does best. We have 191,000 soldiers operating on missions worldwide, and must preserve our ability to meet the needs of the nation. This means we are ensuring that overseas,those including unique geographic constraints, offer protection. We are altering exercise training and daytoday operations to ensure safety for all. To meet the intent of the secretary of defense, we are lined against three lines of effort prevent, detect, and treat. To prevent the spread of virus, we must adhere to the social distancing guidelines from the cdc such as quarantining and handwashing. To eating together, working out together, and being in horseshoe formations. Yourrs, we must change behavior and prevent the spread of the virus. This is the reality of now. Of our to the examples commanding in italy and korea, who have effectively stopped virus from spreading by taking proper and aggressive measures. We could not be more proud of their actions. We have one class scientist working on the coronavirus vaccines. We have tremendous collaboration and all of our efforts. Our organization, such as the medical research and develop and command are experimenting with the vaccine, and are currently in tests. The army is collaborating with the private sector and other Government Entities on five tracks of the vaccine with two dozen candidates. Some are headed toward human testing. Compile as much extensive information as possible to combat the current virus. The detection front, our organization in concert with external entities are working rapidly to increase testing, and with a widened aperture, we contested a higher rate. Facilities with chemical laboratories certified to conduct covid19 testing. Our capacity will increase because they are working on supplemental funding and the defense asked. We have concepts in place to get us north of 16,000 per day as we procure additional instrument asian. The army corps of engineers is working with state governments in 13 states and we will reach 18 by this evening, to provide planning and Concept Development on behalf of fema to support the augmentation and enhanced addition,sponse to in installation hospitals are recalibrating protocols to rapidly assess and treat patients while working toward increasing capacity for larger volumes of infections if needed. Preparedeceived the be mission to respond, and should the need arise for additional medical support, we are ready. Additionally, we are working through the second and Third Order Effects of covid19 and subsequent response. You dont have to be infected to be affected by the virus and we understand the strain that comes with decisions being made. We are reevaluating policies in place. These range from adjusting combat training rotations, delaying moves and providing assistance for unexpected costs for families. Moving recruiting to a virtual platform. We are adopting an Information Age approach to things like graduations. Protect our for some families, it creates the conditions to defeat the virus. I would like to point out today that the army, in a joint effort with the navy, conducted a longrange flight of a hypersonic glide body missile. This is a significant achievement and a testament to the army being prepared to fight today across a range of threats from adversarial actors to strands of a pandemic. We are proud of the force and happy to take your questions. For either of you gentlemen, did you say that you are moving to procuring only, are you recruiting . Ical yes, we are. We are going to basically virtual recruiting. Much of that is done on social media and that allows us to protect our soldiers and the new recruits. So yes, we are. So you are closing recruiting stations as of today . Is happening as we speak. I cant attest to every recruiting station but that is what we are doing over this week , and the next couple of days that is what you will see. But we are moving to i would say virtual recruiting. I have a broader question for the secretary. The experts say you can anticipate that the spread of the virus will only accelerate and is likely to not exclude the military. Ofm wondering what kind worstcase scenario you foresee for the army in terms of how it will have to adjust . We are taking this daytoday pewter a lot of this is looking at the trend data as to how great it will go. Things we learned from general abrams in korea and also in italy is that you create safety bubbles and keep uniform formations intact and ultimately see if you can ride this out. Will this be a seasonal flu . Will it reverberate or boomerang in the fall . So we are keeping the formations intact enforce healthy and will adjust as we learn more. You dont have a specific worstcase situation you are planning for . Secretary mccarthy we are learning more every day and looking at options, but we need to collect more data. I would add to the secretary, what we found in italy and korea were very strong measures where we are screening, separating, washing our hands and we are quarantined as soon as anyone comes up with any sign that they may be affected. , canr the Surgeon General you tell us how many Army Personnel are in fact in isolation or quarantine or however you define it . How many people are in that status of isolation . If you happen to know how many you are awaiting test results on, we have all seen medical data emerge that dr. Birx is talking about, younger people being asymptomatic but potentially susceptible to becoming ill. Im wondering if that makes you theink your calculations, military assumption of a young, healthy force. Does this make you rethink that . And for the army corps, could you bring us uptodate on your discussions with Governor Cuomo in new york. Right now we have a few soldiers in our medical Treatment Facilities. The exact number as of yesterday was eight. This afternoon it could go higher. Again, those that we are the soldiers that have been identified as positive for covid are in proper treatment and care in our medical facilities. As far as hitting the army and our soldiers who are at a younger age, you are absolutely correct. We have conducted and implemented our pandemic Emergency Preparedness plans. We are prepared for an increased wave. Every medical Treatment Facility and every Installation Commander has come together, and we have our pandemic Emergency Preparedness plans, which expand in worstcase scenarios if more of our soldiers get impacted and our beneficiary population. Aside from the positives, can you say how many personnel are in some kind of presumptive, protective isolation or quarantine until they pass this 14day period . You are talking like, troops coming from overseas . I would just say this. The numbers change every day. Every Senior Commander. I dont have a number, because it changes hourly. Hisy Senior Commander on installation in the continental United States has to create isolation facilities and selfquarantine facilities. So the better part of seven to 10 days ago, Senior Commanders had to start doing that. You had to go find those facilities. Some are empty barracks. Some are other facilities on each of these installations. So that when people do come back from overseas, because we do have people returning from overseas, that they can go to selfquarantine if they exhibit symptoms. And then we can keep some units together, so they go to the same dining facility, they are in the same location, but they are isolated from the general population. Both on post and off post. Can we get a quick update on new york . Sure. Barbara, before i talk about a specific state, i think its important to lay out the concept because youve not heard this and we will talk about this a lot. The corps of engineers work for dod, but we are representing fema under direct Mission Assignments that states send to fema and then send back to me for taskers. This is an unbelievably complicated problem and there is no way to do this with a complicated solution. We need something super simple. Our concept here is a standard design. This is the approved design. It has been through hhs, briefed members of the white house and fema. We want to go into existing facilities primarily. Places that are out there, m going to make it simple hotels, College Dormitories and perhaps large spaces. I will give you an example of a small room and a large room. We need to go into these hotels are empty. The people dont have jobs. We would cut a contract to be able to have the state set up a lease with that facility and then we would take the building over in a short amount of days and we would go in and turn this into an iculike facility. There are four different phases. The state has to nominate facilities in a prioritized order. I will talk about Governor Cuomo in a minute. Number two is the army corps of engineers has to modify that facility. We can going to other details and questions, but it goes back to being able to change the pressure in certain hotel rooms to be able to have a negative pressure in a hotel room. The third thing is you have to put supplies in there, and fema working with hhs has come up that every Single Hotel Room with a list would get the same amount of supplies. They would already be there. The fourth step is to staff it. This has to be a state job. The state has to put the people in there. You have to clean it and train it. You have all been in hotels, think of the second floor in a standard hotel. The rooms would be like a hotel room and we would build nurses stations and the halls and have all the equipment, wireless going to the nurses station so you can monitor how it is going to work. Let me correlate this back to new york. We want to use new york as the standard center. Governor cuomo said, what can i do . I said the biggest thing you can do is identify facilities. I said i need one tonight, three by tomorrow night, so we got turned on by the governor, got money from fema to go into buildings tuesday night. We did the Javits Center yesterday and were in sunni schools yesterday. Today my engineers were walking 10 buildings, five hotels and five open spaces, to figure out what does right look like. Then we give this design to a contractor and he cites that design. If it is a hotel with four floors, they change it a little different. If it has central air, we change it. Most governors say their peak will be the middle of april. This isnt taking all the time to do it, it is what is barely the most important things we need to do and come up with a good enough solution. I will leave it there. We can talk later in more detail. Do you have the money to do this . Money is not a problem. Fema has given us the capability. The secretary talked about the 13 other states. That is why we are there. We are asking governors tonight , what are your priorities . We are in 50 states. We can go into other states right now and do these assessments as we need to. I will defer back to the secretary. I want to get back to the testing. You talked about 810 samples so far at these nine Treatment Facilities, you could get to 16,000 per day. Would that be for the army and dependents, civilians, who would be testing . A couple of things. We are talking about creating a test capability to be able to run a test through machine. The labs i referenced before, you have the scientific background to take the positive test out and extract all of the information required. There are a lot of pieces throughout the test continuing. Test continuum. Some of it is just actual machines where you plug in the sample in, and in 45 minutes it computes positive or negative. We are going to buy more machines. Then you also have the swab, it starts with the swab, you put it in a machine, the machine computes, but there are scientific steps that go after that. I would defer you to the medical professions. There are pieces in the supply chain that medical research and Development Command are going to help procure to increase capacity. As secretary asper said, the department of defense, over and above taking care of the force, to support the civilian population. It is as much as increasing our stocks as much as supporting from a national perspective. How long until you get to the 16,000 per day ballpark . Within the next three weeks. However, we have the capability of nine medical centers. We are adding increased capability by adding a fusion piece to it. That will increase outputs tremendously. In addition, we have small medical Treatment Facilities we are looking at expanding and getting capability there also, hopefully in 30 days. We are going to go on the phone lines, we have actually. Yes, thank you. I have a twopart question. I want to hear what impact you are hearing from industry, that the crisis will impact manufacturing and production line challenges. And after the White House Press conference, it is still unclear if the president has invoked the defense production act. Aboutu in discussion producing medical equipment at this time . A couple of questions there. We are working with the Defense Industrial base as well as congress about the funding as well as the increase of capability, everything from continuing the development of Weapons Systems we have on contract, so how can you work out contractually, some states that are not going back to work like pennsylvania and others . We are working on issues there and i will have to potentially work with states and unions and that is ongoing. With respect to the defense production act for medical supplies, those conversations are underway. But there are elements of this where you could turn to a supplier and say, fill the orders for the materials associated for another manufacture manufacturer to make it at scale, and there are other elements of turning to american industry and asking them to make a product specific. They are going through administrative Work Associated with that, and you will hear a lot more soon. We are going to hear from david. Two separate questions. One, if you stop virtual recruiting, how close are you to stopping basic training . Im sorry, if youve closed recruiting stations, how close are you to stopping basic training . And two, in the timeline just described for new york in terms of renovating existing buildings, how many days are we talking about before a contract is let to a contractor to do the actual work and the work begins . Let me take the first one on basic training, initial military training. We are continuing to send soldiers to initial military training. We have extensive procedures in place. It starts at the state and does an assessment of where the state is as far as covid19. They are screened in the state and then they move to the military entrance processing centers. Again, they are screened are they are screened there again, making sure there is no issues. And then they move to the sites where we conduct initial military training. They are screened there again. They go into what we would call a quarantine, even though they are showing no signs, to make sure there are no issues, than en they begin additional military training. And we have reduced the numbers. We are running about 50 . We just ran a test of that. We identified six recruits that had some type of possible symptoms, and have taken appropriate measures to make sure they are being taken care of for their health and welfare. And the general public . With help from hhs, we all re calculating the curves, when they go exponential in cities. We are asking the federal government to help prioritize our efforts with fema to send this to the right place. This has to be weeks, cant be months. It is going to be the good enough solution to do this. It is going to be worked on concurrently, but we think we can do this in three or four weeks and go as fast as we can. Here is the big thing, we want to have a standard contract. We are designing the contracts, we are talking to industry. President trump said yesterday, when things get going tough in america, everybody rallies. This is when our Engineering Contractors step up, Hotel Industry steps up, and here is the Critical Power in this idea. We want to give our products to states, and if states want to do this and contract by themselves, we are giving you something that is an hhsvalidated concept and you dont have to wait on the corps of engineers. You could do this independently, even to the point of going back to secure that money from fema. So we need everybody going full bore to figure out where that bed space capacity is, and how can everybody pull together to make this happen. Phil go first, and then jennifer. On the recruiting stations, what impact is closing recruiting stations going to have . Is it going to drive down recruiting . Do you have a sense of what impact that will that have on you . And on the issue of separating folks who may or may not have the coronavirus at these military facilities, there arent negative pressure rooms, right . So what are you doing in those situations to make sure people who may or may not have it dont start spreading it through the hvac system to everybody in the building . I will take the first one. It is going to depend on duration. We are looking at this really hard over the next 15 days and we are looking every day to what the experts are learning. Is this going to be a seasonal flu and then potentially boomerang in the late fall . We are learning every day about this. Right now it is a tactical almost pause. When you look at how we are approaching this, we had a margin in our recruiting numbers this year, and are doing very well. Knock on wood as i say that. But it is going to depend on duration, and where we will be in a month . So we are going to watch this every day and see how we can make an adjustment downstream. I just want to add one thing. Some of the young men and women who signed up for the military were expecting to may be shipping the next three weeks, maybe they wont be able to do that. For we are looking to do them if theyre unable to shift, well bring them on the payroll, so to speak, bring them on active duty, they can get ready in the community, and then once the situation is better, theyll have a chance to ship. Its just an adjustment, really. They will still have the engagement on the digital space. Ill just talk about the quarantine part. Locationsmanders have on their installations where they can quarantine. And in that quarantine, so if youre not symptomatically, lets say you came back from department from a level 3 country, you go to that quarantine space, you have no symptoms, we keep them quarantined, they go to ms hall, they just Stay Together as a to exhibithey begin symptoms because we test them each day. How are you feeling . Are your question they are able to back up the quarantine part. If they have no symptoms after 12 days, we are going to take a test and then on the 13th day or the 14th day, when it comes back and shows they are not covid positive, then they go home. If they are covid positive, i turn it over to the surgeon and he will let you know what they do. Bethat person would then taken by the military treatment put intoand then isolation. For those installations that do not have the holding capability, we are linked with the local civilian hospital also. Okay. Can either of you talk about the situation at fort bliss . We were hearing some reports that the soldiers themselves who had returned from overseas deployment felt that their quarantine was draconian. Has that been alleviated . What was the truth in terms of the conditions and what changed . [overlapping speakers] one great question for the major. First, i do want to say how proud i am of the United States army. Great soldiers all around the day every day come in, protecting not only, you know, american citizens but protecting each other. So the first and foremost, were going to protect the force. So they come back from deployment and weve gotten used to or come back from deployment, a big ceremony. Were in unprecedented times. We cant learn from this. We cant just do what weve ton done in the past. I think we need some time to get through that to say yeah, were learning as we go just like our nation is learning every day on how we need to do this. Were going to look into that and make sure that were following the guidelines that we get everybody together, we dont go overboard with our extreme measures, but we have to learn and get through this boss we have an obligation to protect the force of the United States soldiers and the citizens and thats what were doing and were going to get through this. Sorry, but what about the specific case at fort bliss . They said there were three to bunks, they werent being given access to exercise. Whats the truth and whats changed there . Its like any good command, were going to investigate and see whats going on in the command and say were going to look into this. We have issues like we would have any other issues that people bring these issues to us and we allow the Senior Mission commander to investigate those positions. So you havent looked into it yet . Yes, the senior command is looking into that specific issue right now. Okay. When we get information from the command well pass that along. And another question, the cadets at west point, do you expect them to arrive on campus in the fall and to go through to be on campus or will it be a sort of a learning situation . You know, i think its too early to say. Well know a lot more here shortly. Weve been working through the issue just getting that senior class out and getting them to the force, what were really keenly focused on right now. You know, like the question earlier that phil had. Were looking at the movements of every soldier in the force. And looking at just how safely we can get them from a. To b. So they can continue to move down the path. To the point the chief made earlier about this soldiers that went through maps and showed up affour installations just yesterday and you had four or six of them. They were six. Six that had covid symptoms, immediately isolated and we are that focused on recruiting rotc and, obviously, west point because the force generation is just so important. Right now, just looking at how do we get those thousand out of there in may and get them down to their training as well as rotc cadets, as well. Right now, i think, you know, were doing Online Training for west point cadets, were at that position right now and then were going to do every two weeks, take a look and ideally in a Perfect World if this does crest and come down we would like to bring the seniors back for graduation, a chance to lead, but were going to wait and see and make sure the conditions are safe before we do that. Okay. Were going to go to the line real quick, we have terrence from news week. Hello, this is therese. I know there was a ban on the public graduations to protect the trainees and their family members. I spoke to a lot of families and they were really distraught about this. What are you doing to try to boost the moral for the trainees coming in and their families and also, is it possible to make it mandatory that family members of Service Members be tested for coronavirus to protect that Service Member even if they dont have symptoms of the coronavirus . Ill take the graduation. This is one of those things that were putting some pretty tough procedures in place. And as we talk to general abrahams and we talk to general that were very successful. If we dont change our behavior and we put a large amount of people together before we have the requisite amount of testing were going to have a lot rougher situations and we want to make sure that were protecting the families and the soldiers and really, you know, i know theyre disappointed about not having a graduation, but we want to make sure that they leave our training in a safe manner. Do you want to add anything . [background conversations] again, real quick. Based on the assessment, you know, the decision that was made, we then would look at, you know, following again, the cdc protocols first but then what is best to protect those family members as well as the soldiers, and then we would make a decision in reference to the testing. Thank you very much. A bunch of questions on the hotel rooms. How many rooms total do we anticipate being converted in new york . And what sort of plans are there potentially for Washington State of california, which have been pretty hard hit . And then if you could walk us through, how do you exley make a room a negative pressure room how do you exactly make a room a negative pressure room . And then lastly for the secretary, are you feeling ok . Theres a few sniffles there at the beginning. [laughter] let me start with that one. Im fine. I have exhibited no symptoms. Every time we walk in the office, they check our temperature and we wash our hands. Hes six feet from me. Were not getting a lot of sleep. Other than that, im doing well. Thank you for asking, though. But one thing i would ask this comment before the general chimes in, its important to understand that they have is to put together a concept to triage large volumes of potential patients so somebody can come up to the front door and they could say i dont feel on wednesday, at walter reid this morning and just looking at the procedures that are put in place. And youve got an efour soldier asks three or four questions. Ive hurt my ankle falling down. Maybe covid, and this is the way to triage this large scale. Weve put concepts in place for the states that ultimately, wouldnt require public support probably, but its just a matter of what because people are asking what hospital . A lot of this is just conceptually, how would you put it in place . And a lot of that has to do with the comments that the general made earlier. What are the trends . How many people . In many cases, a lot of these folks that come into the hospital, they get medication, they go home. Theyre not necessarily required to stay overnight at a hospital. And a lot of that is just conceptually how are you going to screen large scale . Hospitals like Saint Vincent probably arent used to hundreds of people showing up. Thats where we can help just think through the problem with the Systems Engineering approach, and then ultimately apply more resources as needed. General, anything you want to add . You asked about numbers. Every state im sure is right in the process of trying to figure this out. Thats they the secretary talked about talking to these governors and trying to get this. We dont know exactly what they are. Theres two variables were looking at. Were looking at what is the slope of the curve of how many people are getting sick . And then what is the shortage of actual beds in that particular city . You might have a city with theres one i wont mention, but thats got a pretty high slope of a curve, but theyve got got an awful lot of brandnew hospitals and theyve got pretty good capability to do that. The other thing i didnt talk about in a lot of detail is this idea of the big concept. We want to try to be into the hotel dormitory, but we do have the ability to do a convention center. Thats a little bit easier to do, but its not quite the same level of care that we really want to do. We want to do this right and do this liberty and this goes back to again we cant do everything. Weve got to somewhat be able to draw the line and the more that the states can figure out how to do this by themselves, then that takes so much more burden off so then we can be asked to go in to those states that dont have that capacity. So, i know that you cant give us specific numbers, but at least for new york, where you were therant ground, have you gotten an indication, are you talking about hundreds of rooms youre converting . Thousands of rooms . Were talking about over 10,000 that were looking at right now. We need to send that up and in fairness to the state of new york, that is not my decision. That has to go to fema. Fema has to make a decision of what is that allocation, and then we will exercise whatever fema task us to do. And then lastly how do you convert room to negative pressure . Im going to make it super simple. Its the little takeny unit, almost every hotel room has a highlights tiny unit in the corner and actually it is a selfcontained for that particular room. We want to bring the pressure down two or three psi and you actually adjust that unit to suck more air out down through the bathroom vent to be able to have a negative pressure. On the door, you put a great pepsi plastic with a zipper on with yob you go into the room, i dont want to bore you, but its its a relatively simple process and if we cant use the existing unit were going to rip it out and put another one back in thats a higher pressure. Were trying to suck the air down so we have a negative pressure. [overlapping speakers] i wanted to ask how youre protecting the troops in active conflict zones feel like iraq and afghanistan and how is that affecting operations . Like, how your you do why, with and through at a distance of six feet . And then the policy question is how much was the shrinking of the footprint in iraq, postsoleimani, covid19 and watching iran activity in southern syria, protecting the oil fields . In fact, i talked to general miller this morning just to get a sense of whats going on in afghanistan. Its the same issue that all commanders did. Hes got a combat Mission Going on right now and theyre advising and assisting. So hes taking a look at is the criticality of each mission. They are doing the things that we talked about. Theyre using social distance, which quite frankly, does work. As we looked at korea, you stay six feet away, people arent spreading germs and you wash your hands, that does work. So what taking a look at the he is doing is taking a look at the missions that hes getting and putting those measures. Also, as we send troops into the region, we are quarantining them. Were bringing some troops in as they come into the region. If that mission was central, were doing a Risk Assessment on them. Process them through one of the countries before they get to afghanistan and making sure it that they are that they have no issues with the virus. Is. Well go to tom. [inaudible question] how much is the shrinking of the footprint in iraq due to what was already going on with soleimani and iraqi anger over u. S. Strikes against iranian proxies, and how much was covid19 . Well, you know, with pat white, hes doing the same thing. Hes taking a look at how he works with the iraqis. The Mission Continues there. At the same time, hes trying to protect the force. And does that pullback affect watching iranian activity in the south, or protecting those oil fields . I think right now, in many of these countries, theyre very, very concerned about this virus also. In iraq, in afghanistan, certainly in iran is you know, this virus is a serious concern for all. And thats affecting everyones operations. Even iranian proxy activity in southern syria . Well, i probably wouldnt i would probably defer that question. Two questions. One is, have military services for funerals been suspended . And second question is, you talked about the bubble earlier. It was you, general. How far back do you have to envision, sir, maybe for troops that were in like tier 3 countries like italy and south korea . In december, their concern they might be carriers. That type of thing. Weve brought family back from korea. We brought a whole brigade back, that was recently just january, february time frame from the first cavalry decision. So far, so good. But that double and thats what general abrahams really did and for some others it was pretty draconian because when you went somewhere, when you came you were asked questions, your temperature, if you were to come on in the military installations, your temperature was taken, you were asked questions. You were screened and as soon as there were issues you went into some type of quarantine. And thats how you prevent the spreading. So like for korea and that other question. I think the first announced case was on january 20. So if troops came back for that, were they retroactively screened . No. So they were not at that particular point they were not diagnosed as a level 3 country. When they went that level 3, everything that arrived after that went through screening. Both the chief and the secretary i think the important point is because, you know, they identified a certain time on the ground in both korea and italy. Those commanders, general abrahams and general they put a seal around their installations and families and thats whey those outcomes have been so positive. My other question was, sir on the funerals here, for the old guard, kind of reduced some of the footprint is theyre not going to have like the escorts. There wont be large formation for those that are authorized in escort, but theyre still doing doing what we would say full honors. Were just using the same criteria we use for everybody else. Just keep your distance and remember our fallen. Thank you. Were going to go on to haley on the line. Yes, thank you. Im wondering how these requirements, things like social distancing and keeping soldiers separated are being balanced with readiness requirements and what kind of instruction balanced with protecting soldiers, you know, and the things that may require them to have close contact . Yeah, weve had that discussion. In fact, i was just discussing that with the force come commander, and getting you know, theres some things that we can do as far as training, where we have small amounts of soldiers that continue to train. You know, we want small amounts. If you take the squad, a lot of times when squads are training, its a fivemeter distance the way they move and maneuver so they could continue to train and have that social distance. What we dont want people doing is having large formations, what we dont want people doing is putting large amounts of soldiers maybe into an auditorium for training where theres a much greater chance to spread. But, you know, soldiers can still go to the field. Soldiers can still train, but we are recommending highly that they keep that social distance and take a look at what the soldiers mission is. Theres certain soldiers that have Critical Missions coming up. Theyre combat missions. They need to be ready to that. And thats a risk of the mission so they know they need to continue to train. If they have other missions than the so essential they can take the proper measures to account for that. Laura on the line and well do one more in person question. Hi. Can you hear me . Go ahead. Great, awesome. So, im just wondering if you can tell me if youre thinking at all about graduating any medics early to try and help alleviate pressure on the civilian hospitals and are you looking at that possibility . Well, right now, were not. We think its very important that our medics are trained if theyre going to help out and just one thing as far as our whole medical community and the general was here, weve told him, the guidance weve given him is throughout the entire medical community, theyre going to be engaged in combating this virus and if theyre in the reserves, they may be operating in the theyll be deployed in combat or theyll be composing our hospitals that are requested, but every single medical professional in the United States army is going to be engaging in this endeavor in some way. Time for one more. I have about five. So, lets see, for the secretary and the chief, you called me last. You put cash in the Field Hospital and deployed field orders. Have they been assigned to go anywhere and are there any other medical units or anyone whos been yeah, ill take that because i talked about that yesterday, we talked about the 47 combat support hospital out of fort lewis. We also talked about the hospital out of fort campbell. Those were the two that were given prepare to deploy order. Were also really giving a warning order to all our role 3 hospitals and what were doing is were taking a look at them and saying okay, the one that we talked about at fort lewis, we may not end up if we do get an order to deploy, that may not be the one that we deploy. We dont have an exact place to go, but because theyre sitting at joint base lewis mccord in washington right now, those hospitals actually theyre in the area. They work in clinics. They work in the hospitals so what weve asked the Surgeon General, as we stand up these hospitals, we say hey, whats the impact on the community if we take these people out of the hospital . Because i dont want to say they have a day job, but they do normal medical care during the day. Its the same thing with our reserves and the National Guard. We canceled a combat Training Center rotation for the 81st Striker Brigade Combat Team because thats a National Guard brigade from washington and really the soldiers come from washington and california and were anticipating that the governors may need them so we dont want to take them to the combat Training Center when we think they need to be used in community and the same thing with the doctors, the nurses and the rest of the folks. While hes coming up the thing i get back to again is just the concept thats put in place for how theyre going to conduct the healthcare continuum from screening all the way through to recovery so ultimately those will be the sourcing Solutions Coming forward. Those hospitals you referenced, those are for trauma. So will they be used just for trauma patients because people are going to get into car accidents, things are going to happen over and above covid19, but or do we change the Task Organization of that hospital bepersonnel . Numbers of beds . So things could potentially change. Ultimatelythies three guys are planning and ultimately, offering up concepts to fema, and then ultimately, work with the states. I want to jump on that because we get asked the question, youve got a cash, youve got a Field Hospital. How many beds . And we give you that, thats probably not how were going to do it because we look at some of these Field Hospitals, theyre tents. And that may not be the best place. Were in the United States. Weve got hotels. Weve got dormitories. We can do much better care and maybe they occupy that building if they had to do it so what were looking for is heres the capabilities we have and then working with this team right here to get the right people in the right place at the right time. Hurry, running out of time here. A multicompo approach to it because we know that if we know we pull one, its going to impact either civilian sector or our military medical Treatment Facilities so were doing a comprehensive analysis to make sure we get it right and dont break something. You guys all appreciating that. Its like a jingo puzzle. Jenga puzzle. If you extract doctors to go to new york, what does that do to the fort . So the rigor for the sourcing solutions are more unique than what weve seen before because we go to the middle east, we come home, its not as linear of a problem set. The complexity because its right here at home. They do things at home over and above deploying with unit x. Or y. So that and i know youre going to want to know units are be going here and there, thats why you see a greater level of rigor than you would see under a normal condition. Every medical unit in the u. S. Army is is on a warning order right now to potentially prepare to deploy . Not [overlapping speakers] we have 191,000 people deployed. Theyre working on everything. What i would say is every unit in the United States army, medical, has been told to take a look at their capabilities and capacities so they can come back to us so when someone says we need a Field Hospital and i look at it and you have this many people from this post, this then people from that post, what are those doctors doing at madigan thats going to fill that . We pulled this person out to go to this Field Hospital. We just took down this capability there. What we want to do and especially for the reserves because were assuming most of those doctors, those nurses, thats probably what theyre doing in real life when theyre not in the reserves. Comprehensive inventory. Come on. Keep going. And then general, how much money did fema give corps of engineers on tuesday . Have there been any other allocations sense tuesday . How many facilities . Can you give us the hard stats of what ill keep this really short. Secretary has asked me to be available next week a facility only press conference. Fema gave us 1 million. They basically said whatever you need you keep coming back for the planning piece so thats whey were in states right now doing all the planning. The only actual list i have today is of new york. But thats why these states are coming back and once i know more then ill lay all this out for you. Wheres the buildings, how many facilities, and whats this look like . How many facilities do you have right now . Right now, 12 facilities that were worth at. Theyll be done by today. 12. What else . Are you good . Okay. Just one quick one. I know this is the Army Leadership in formation, but im wondering are you coordinating with the other services . Im thinking of the seabees. Are you working with them . We definitely are when it comes to d. O. D. Missions. I basically do most of my work in this lane under fema, where some of the other services dont have that. So while the other services can certainly do things on military installations, when it comes to fema missions, i basically do that with the corps of engineers only. Once the concepts are firm, then you reach into what types of capabilities youre going to need. Anybody else . Okay, last one. Real quick. Whats the reasonable expectation if a soldier comes in and wants a covid test . How long should it take for him or her to get a response back . And real quick, before you said that all the folks who tested positive were going into these zero pressure rooms, people who are fine were in normal barracks. What about the people who are presumptive . Are they going to zero pressure rooms . Look, i think a lot of this is just how extreme some people are going home. And theyre going into quarantine, selfquarantine. So, not everybody is required for that level of care. I mean, general, do you want to jump in here . Based on the condition of that soldier, some will just be sniffles and going through it light. Others will be more severe that will require hospitalization. It depends on the condition of the soldier. Allergies. [inaudible question] thats a hipaa thing. Actually, the president said the lawyers said to be cautious with that. Were not asking for names. Were just asking if there are any people we do not is what he said. Can you ask what other states have asked for the hospital plans . Its too long a list right now. I can lay that out. Im in the process of making a matrix of all 50 states. The territories, as well. Who are we talking to . What do we think the requirement is . We arent there yet. Were getting all this stuff in every single day. Were looking very hard at california, the state of washington. Weve already been to new jersey and were working our way around the states that are coming back and were really looking at where is the biggest demands so well go to those states first. Well be able to give you a comprehensive breakdown next week. As i started, were just going to come down here routinely and tell you about our progress, about the health of the force and just what were learning from day to day, but you know, these are very extraordinary set of circumstances. The thing that resonates the most with me is just a 24news 24 hour news cycle. And its affecting us here at home. These guys are working 14 hours a day and their families, to answer questions. So people are working really hard, but a really unique set of circumstances. I think you all feel it, too. And just take care of yourselves, okay . And ill take a question or two on my day out here and weve got to get back up there okay . Just one closing thing. Secretary, we have about 190,000 soldiers around the world, but the real heroes in this, in this fight is going to be our doctors, our scientists, our nurses and our medical professionals and theyre on the front lines of this thing and weve got a chance to go up to fort and seeing what theyre doing. Theyre really getting after it and we will prevail, so thank you. [background conversations] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] is easy to follow the federal response to the coronavirus outbreak at cspan. Org corona virus. Track the spread throughout the u. S. And the world with interactive maps and charts. Watch briefings and hearings with Public Health specialist anytime, unfiltered, at ronavirus. co cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up saturday morning, arthur evans, ceo of the American Psychological association, will discuss stress and coping strategies during the coronavirus pandemic. An reuters correspondent David Shepherdson will be on. He will talk about whae