Pentagon to Provide 5 Million Masks for Virus Effort, Esper Says

(Bloomberg) -- The Defense Department will provide 5 million medical-grade air-filtering masks -- 1 million of them available immediately -- as well as 2,000 ventilators as it steps up its role in the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said.

The Pentagon can also make the Navy’s two hospital ships available on the East and West coasts, Esper told reporters Tuesday. But he emphasized that the ships and other military resources would best be able to treat some trauma cases to make room for coronavirus patients at civilian hospitals that are properly equipped to handle infections.

“They don’t have necessarily the space, the segregated spaces, you need to deal with infectious diseases,” Esper said at the Pentagon. “So one of the ways by which you could use either field hospitals, the hospital ships or things in between, is to take the pressure off of civilian hospitals when it comes to trauma cases, is to open up civilian hospital rooms for infectious diseases.”

The Pentagon is also “more than willing” to send the Army Corps of Engineers to states that need its help and would consider activating the National Guard and Reserves on federal status as opposed to the state-by-state requests now being honored, Esper said.

He cautioned that it would take take days or weeks to activate the National Guard and reservists who hold civilian jobs -- and that some are doctors badly needed now for their daily jobs.

A vaccine for coronavirus could be ready within 12-18 months, Esper said after visiting Fort Detrick in Maryland, where Army doctors are working on developing a vaccine.

Mobile Units

The Pentagon chief’s comments came shortly after President Donald Trump said that he’s the asking the military to look into proposals for the Corps of Engineers to fix up buildings for emergency use and to set up “MASH” units, portable hospitals.

“We have to give them the go-ahead if we find that it’s going to be necessary,” Trump said. “We think we can have quite a few units up very rapidly.”

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