Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday the Pentagon will provide 5 million respirator masks and 2,000 specialized ventilators to federal health authorities to help in the response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Esper told Pentagon reporters that the ventilators are designed for use by deployed troops and the military will need to train civilians on how to use them. He said some may have "single-use" limitations. And he said the first million respirator masks will be made available ïmmediately.
U.S. officials have talked about the shortage of ventilators to help treat patients with the virus. Esper admitted the 2,000 ventilators will not put a dent in the number needed, based on some profiles he has been presented by the CDC.
Esper also said he has asked the Navy to prepare the military's two hospital ships, the USNS Comfort and USNS Mercy, for deployment. The ships, however, are more focused on treating trauma then infectious disease.
"Our capabilities are focused on trauma so whether it is our field hospitals or hospital ships they are focused on trauma. They don't have the space, the segregated space you need to deal with infectious diseases," explained Esper.
Esper says one of the ways they are looking to use hospital ships and field hospitals is to "take the pressure off civilian hospitals when it comes to trauma cases to open up civilian hospital rooms for infectious diseases."
While there has been no request for active duty service members Esper did point out National Guards have been activated in 18 states. In many cases, the National Guard will help with logistics and planning.
"All those doctors and nurses come from our medical treatment facilities or they come from the reserves which means, civilians so what we need to be very conscious of as we call up these units and use them to support the states that we aren't robbing Peter to pay Paul," said Esper.
The DoD is also opening up its 14 testing labs to tests to non-DoD in order to help the government increase its testing capabilities.
Earlier today Esper visited the US Army Medical Research and Development Command where he says the team is working on creating a vaccine for COVID-19. While the vaccine is still 12-18 months away, he said the Army is also willing to support some "private actors" who are trying to create one sooner.
As of 5 a.m. Tuesday morning, the Department of Defense had 59 total COVID-19 cases across the force. This includes 36 active duty personnel, eight civilians, 12 dependents, and 3 contractors. The number of active-duty COVID-19 cases doubled in 24 hours.
The situation has been rapidly developing since this week — Monday saw the first COVID-19 case reported on a Navy ship.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
