Esper: DOD considering activating National Guard and reserve forces for COVID-19

Defense Secretary Mark Esper said today the Trump administration is considering federal activation of National Guard and reserve forces to help state and local governments respond to the COVID-19 outbreak.

"As we get requests in, we will look at activating them if we need to at the federal level," he said during a Pentagon press briefing.

Esper, however, noted that guard forces can be immediately called by state governors.

He also said the U.S. military will be tapping its strategic reserves to provide the Health and Human Services Department with five million N95 respirators and 2,000 ventilators.

Esper also said he has ordered the Navy to "lean forward" in preparing to deploy two hospital ships on either coast that could potentially "take the pressure off" civilian hospitals by taking on non-COVID-19 patients.

"Our capabilities are focused on trauma," he said. "They don't have necessarily the space -- the segregated spaces -- you need to deal with infectious diseases."

Esper said DOD is also trying to be conscious of what kind of guard and reserve forces are called to duty.

"All of those doctors and nurses either come from our medical treatment facilities or they come from the reserves, which means civilians," Esper said. "What I don't want to do is take reservists from a hospital where they are needed just to put them on a ship to take them somewhere else where they're needed."

Additionally, Esper said he is "more than willing" to send the Army Corps of Engineers to support state governors but stressed that the corps is a contracting and oversight body, not a construction team.

He said it might be faster for states to contract for needed construction on their own, but New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has called for the corps to be deployed.

Meanwhile, Esper, who today visited the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Ft. Detrick, MD, said the Army is working on a vaccine that is at least 12 to 18 months away. The secretary said he also has plans to visit the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and be briefed on its COVID-19 efforts.