On the frontlines of this fight over 7,000 National Guardsmen, operating across all states, territories and the district of columbia who continue to assist state and authorities in their response efforts. In new york, washington, and president hase approved mobilizing National Guard troops under title 32 them fullich provides access to federal resources, but still allows them to be managed government. To be clear, this is not a move towards martial law as some have erroneously claimed. Our great National Guard troops are performing tasks, such as drivethru testing sites, conducting food delivery to protect vulnerable populations and helping states coordinate their local responses. Allowing states to maintain control over their National Forces is the most effective way to manage their efforts as it permits each the guardstailor activities the best support the needs of their state. The president announced yesterday, the hospital ship tocy will deploy this week los angeles working closely with fema to set the conditions for the ships arrival later this so she can start receiving noncovid19 medical patients to in some of space l. A. s most heavily stressed hospitals. I spoke with the captain of the as he was making final preparations to set sail. The men and women of the mercy rile trained professionals and are eager to join this fight to start helping their fellow americans. Weeks ourt couple of other hospital ship the comfort will head to new york city for the same purpose. And staff are already making the necessary preparations for the upcoming mission. I had the chance to speak to that ships captain, as well. Concurrently we have a number of hospitals and expeditionary military units on orders. To deploy the army corps of engineers is also set to begin work to convert hotels, dormitories and into temporary medical facilities across the country. Activated 10th has defense coordinating elements, colocated with each fema Regional Headquarters to requests for federal military assistance. Fema as the lead agency for the federal response will validate and prioritize these requests. Willepartment of defense then deploy our forces around the country to provide this support as directed. Additionally, the department continues to provide Logistical Support to american citizens world. The last friday, for example, we flew members of an u. S. Womens from hondurashome after the country closed its borders. We continue to keep our service members, civilians and family Members Around the world informed on the latest guidance. They, we are elevating pentagon reservation status to Health Protection condition c. , charlie. Limits the number of Access Points to the pentagon and increases the amount of telework who would among a few other things. Tomorrow, we will publish on 11thguidance surgeries as we look for additional ways to free up medical capacity and resources focus on covid19related treatments. In general it is important that all continue to employ protective measures including good hand washing, proactive medical screening and social distancing. These can dramatically decrease the risk of an infection and slow the spread of virus. The United States military remains well prepared to defend the nation. Although we have scaled back exercises, major routine training continues across all services to ensure our forces maintain a high state of readiness. I trust our commanders to make the best decisions for their units as they balance Mission Requirements with force Health Protection. I am proud of our service dod civilians and families who are answering the call all around our great country. Them for their contributions to this fight. I am confident that our nation will come back even stronger. Thank you. And well now take more questions. Were going to go to the phone lines. Lita with a. P. For doing this and hi, to everyone in the briefing room. Mr. Secretary, two questions. One, can you provide some Additional Details on the number of Field Hospitals and other hospital units that the u. S. Andtary is making available when and where you think they may go . What impactondly, do you think some of this is having on readiness . Navy are a number of sailors who have become ill. Us anu just give assessment of what impact youre seeing so far on readiness both in the United States and in war zones . Thank you. Thanks, lita. So we have a number of hospitals and medical facilities expeditionary military medical creeities across all services. We have put on prepare to deploy orders, five such units that will be prepared to deploy. Take ourof course, sourcing guidance from fema, but right now, i anticipate sending a hospital to seattle and a hospital to new york city and beyond that once thats confirmed, we will look at asding to other places and necessary we will continue to alert units to prepare to deploy and then deploy them as appropriate. With regard to readiness, we have as some of you know, we have 133 military personnel who have contracted the virus. Taking great care of them, watching them closely. Ive had a chance to talk to several of them to check on them. As this virus ramps up and spreads well obviously see more more impact of persons in our ranks. Im confident that while it may have some impact on readiness it not affect our ability to connect our National Security andions both at home abroad. Im very confident in the and health of our force and the commanders ability to make sure they manage our resources and our people. Mind ive always outlined three proprietors. Number one protecting our people, two, mission contain capabilities available to us and number three our whole nation effort. Last week weesper, heard that the army had excess capacity to test, about 16,000 could run a day, but theyre running at a very small amount of that. Why isnt the military helping civilian labs with testing load . E the back and if i could ask a question about afghanistan, why did secretary of state pompeo feel go out too afghanistan . , is ther perspective socalled peace deal in jeopardy and have you slowed the number of i dont want to get too much into afghanistan today. I want to speak about coronavirus, but i spoke to the secretary earlier today, hes obviously over there to try to moving forward. Otherwise, hell be coming back, im sure hell speak to it more he returns to the United States. On your first question ive already forgotten what the first question was. Testing. So we have 16 labs available. Least 6,000 a day is our through put. I dont know where the 16,000 number came from, but i think were up to 6,000 in terms of capacity. Is test kits and as more of those come on board we can test more, but we have those services up to the interagency to provide testing as we have excess capacity in our labs. And if my numbers are wrong, somebody will clean it up afterwards, but those were roughly the numbers. Go to courtney. Be clear onnt to the Field Hospitals. So the ones going to seattle and new york city you expect those to move out this week . I want to clarify so theres no confusion. Beingare hospitals provided by hhs. I forget what exactly they are called put they are hospitals in beds, bed space, things like that. Those are being provided to and i forget the other location. It might have been new york, as well. Ourre looking at deploying Field Hospitals, which include the hospital, the equipment and professionals and my aim is to get them out this week. My view is seattle and new york city are the places we just need fema to validate that because u. S. In mind, fema is the governments Central Place for handling of requests and in validating and prioritizing them. That is my notion, weve been moving out this week. And can you give us a little bit more detail about changing the Health Protection condition the pentagon. I think a lot of us here have been talking about how many people are actually working in building right now prior to that and where you expect that number is now and where it will go to under c. You those numbers on whos working in the building now. Maybek its down calorie, 60 if not more. Im working off numbers i was week. Last there does come with charlie additional measures. About limiting the number of sites. Screening, we could go to medical screening in terms of peopleture testing as come in. Theres another action that is looked at and everybody swiping come in so there are a number of things we should be putting out information more today. Is no intent whatsoever, barbara, to limit the access of the press. Buildingnt to keep the open again certainly for essential personnel and for the media. And were going to go to the phone lines. Afp. Yes, hello, do you hear me . I hear you. Much. Y thank you very the president yesterday spoke about a hostage who was the help of the dod. Did you say hostage . Yes. A young lady, a Young American who was the victim of a crime in in honduras i believe. She has been returned to the states, and ill just say out of respect for her, and her family, for her privacy, well leave it at that. Go to barbara. Ive already answered your so we can skipra you, i guess. Never. R or hopefully you said something really interesting. Do expect now some impact on readiness. To the best of my recollection, the first time youve publicly at least said that. Expand ayou just little bit, what are you hearing from your folks about what you expect that impact on readiness to be . Is such a thing, how come the Defense Department civilian sector perhaps not better prepared to deal with a pandemic situation . But ive never heard you say before are prepared for a pandemic. We have pandemic plans in place. Them nown exercising since late january, if you will. The commanders have been executing their plans. Stocked up millions of supplies, the United States military and our strategic withpile to handle it regard to pieces of equipment. Lets go back to your first question. If this pandemic continues at the scale and scope of what some are predicting, over time you can start seeing an impact on readiness because were curtailing some exercises, and as you curtail exercises, over time, that could have an nothingn readiness, but ourhich i fear impacts Mission Readiness to conduct our National Missions. Thats just common sense i think. On how long this lasts, the extent of it, the impact on our population is the mentioned, i think i all those things are factors that well take into consideration over time. Our most critical resource is our people and i want to make sure 23 take care of them. Said from thee beginning, number one is taking because if people you cant take care of your people, you cant take care of number two which is safe our National Mission capabilities. Thats why were exercising a lot of Due Diligence with regard force. Health of the just to be clear, is it your department, you covid19anuary that was a pandemic situation . Cant not going to i think as far back as yesterday let alone two or three months ago. Use of the term pandemic is a call made my medical professionals, not by us. Were always careful in understanding the world around us in order to protect the force precautions. Take you cant go into deployment without getting multiple checks, dental, physical checks, things like that so were always very conscious of the health of the force before deploying on a military mission. Anyhere has there been consideration towards moving active duty military doctors their jobs towards dealing with sort of the coronavirus treatment . You talkedoadly, about two, three Field Hospitals. Many do you think will be needed . Are we talking dozens . Whats the scale . We only have so much capacity begin with because at the end of the day we have to protect our Mission Capabilities as i was just discussing with barbara. Theres going to be a limit to what we can provide if we want our military capability. With regard to your First Mission ive said before here when you look at our Field Hospitals, when you look at the hospital ships, most, many, majority of the people from those ships, the medical professionals will come from the reserves. Conscious of where we pull the reserves from. The balance will likely come active duty military treatment facilities. Were very conscious as we draw people to staff up the ships or where weres pulling them from because youre taking away from peter to pay pall and you want to make sure you dont have an impact on an simply t really needs it simply. Have you used any active duty military doctors so far . I talked to the ships captains last week they didnt give me a count they were in the process of calling people up how many were active and reserve. We will have those numbers in due course. Going back to the phone lines, jeff schoble. Thank you very much. Saysecretary, i know you you trust commanders to make the appropriate decision, but we found theres no consistency on echelons when it comes to either social distancing or how on leave onan go the weekend. Commanders are Still Holding all formations at town halls to talk about the need to be socially distance when theyre standing right next to each other. Can i ask where is this guidance and whaton what to do to avoid so that it can slow the disease . This well, jeff for all of you, theres there will be because everys situation is unique. Its unique by the type of unit. Its unique by the mission. Location. E by the and any other number of factors. Now in other cases where we could clearly have done better we clearly could have done better and we will continue to work to do better, but i have to commanders and our cos, were fully guidance. Ng the cdc there will be inconsistencies, im sure all of you will learn inconsistencies, but we continue to emphasize the guidelines provided and we power down to the commanders to do what they think best. Mr. Secretary a week ago you talked about dod setting aside 5 masks, 1 million immediately, and then i think you said 2,000 ventilators. An update hows many have gone out and do you have a sense where theyre going . At myh, i dont fingertips. Weve offered those up. Theyre now in the fema system in terms of responding, but right, were offered up 1 million immediately with regard the respirators and we discussed the ventilators this morning. Pulling them all in. Those are going to be offered up to fema, as well. Again, i dont have the details on where they are going to apply them. Fema again is the central repository processing place to do both validating requirements and then prioritizing the requirements. Th[inaudible question] you off to the side afterward and give you more details as we have them. So followup on social distancing and commanders having that. L of is there any accountability or do you think any further measures are needed along those lines . Re getting tips also about does that mean they dont need be six feet apart or organizations that are deployed to kuwait where theyre having together just because theres no coronavirus in kuwait, does that mean they shouldnt be six feet apart . Or should the military be all in this together . Like six you just gave different examples of, which theres probably 30 different variables and we could all step into some same location and make a different call on each. If theres something that sounds really egregious or whatnot, we should follow up on that, using the chain of command, but i blankett about a policy, if you will, that we would then apply to everybody every situation is different. Tell me how i do six feet attack submarine or how do i do that in a bomber with two pilots sitting side by side . All these situations are different. The guidelines passed by cdc, and we ask commanders at all a youngwhether youre platoon leader like i once was commander to use their best guidance and get it down to the force and ask to implement and, by the way, their senior ncos. Find things that dont make sense we will pull the string on that. You founde anything that you have asked to be followed up on . Not yet. Not yet. For one moretime from the phone and one more from the room. The phone line. There, thanks again. Forcewide. Rules does that also mean theres no mandate on testing . Has there been any kind of on testing and whether or not more troops are going to where there places are higher outbreaks than there are right now . Like with the guidance were social distancing and other best practices weve given the same guidance with regard to testing. Theres no need to test, unless you are symptomatic. Symptomatic then you will get a test and thats kind of the general rule weve following, thats whats been issued across the country, thats the rule we are following pentagon, as well. And well go to tara. You. Ank could you tell us how many beds the Field Hospitals will have that are going to seattle . Last week, the mercy was on orders already for seattle, but los angelesg to instead. Could you walk us through what changed your mind on that particular deployment . Last as weve seen more Senior Leaders and lawmakers takenositive, have you the coronavirus test and your results . So ive been screened for times. Ture numerous i have not taken a test. I have been asymptomatic. Get symptoms i will take the test. Im going to live by the rules given to us by the cdc. Thats number one. Was two the Field Hospital sizes. So it depends. Sizesare different depending on the circumstance and the type of hospital. The largest we have is the army hospital, 248 beds. I suspect that that will be the type that were sending because they give the highest capacity in one fell swoop, and then you seattleout why versus so what i was getting my hunch, but again, its fema, its femas call based on i think they have eight factors they assess based on where the need is and where the need may be and they ones that recommended and made the call that the mercy to los angeles instead of seattle. Followup. If seattle does need a dod hospital,nd an hhs shouldnt it also have needed the mercy . Again, i would have to refer you to fema on what their decision tree looks like. Were going to support fema in do in any other type of emergencies and send our capabilities where theyre needed. Thats why i anticipate the need to send a Field Hospital to seattle. Hhs is sending hospital support to seattle as well and we would have to just connect fema or get you, you know, information back to our folks as the criteria is and how they apply. Prioritize those. I could tell you, ive spoken nine, 10n, eight governors so far. Each one of them has had hospitals,r field along the coastline, talking about the need for ships. So we clearly cant meet needs with what we have in our inventory so we rely assessment,o the the validation and then the prioritization. Anticipate how i foresee the is duringbeing used the early stages of the pandemic, the virus hitting a city where theyre still trying to ramp up capability, we can come in for a short period of few weeks to provide that capacity until they get either gyms converted, hotels converted, College Dorms converted, all those things that the corps of engineers is on right now that in fact, in fact, the general has been discussing with new york capacity because what were talking about is the beds. Or thousands of i we can provide 248. I see us playing this role where were a gap filler for a few weeks. The capacity is met through the other mechanisms, i talked about expanding supply, but you curtailingdemand by 11th surgeries and things like that, we can pull out and grow go tothe next site. Thats how i think it will play out, but were looking at that closely trying to model how this affect theand country. Can i follow up on that . The army corps, of course, is involved in helping new york city and so forth. What about the seabees . Fairlyn do things quickly. I dont know all the capabilities of the seabees, but talking more i dont want to say purely combat constructiont engineers. What weve assessed at this point in time is that constructing facilities, hospitals and whatnot would take far more time than it would to existing infrastructure and convert it. The state of new york has been aggressive. Theyve already identified sites. The corps is assessing the sites. Go in andcan quickly theyve got a four fad phase mo. Stage one is to identify the site, thats the states responsibility. Build,two is where they the corps builds with femas help. They go and they run additional electrical lines. They set up wifi. They can reconfigure the building toof the set up nurses station, monitoring stations, etc. Phase, fema comes in, provides medical equipment. The medical supplies, etc. The fourth phase is when the state comes in and brings their medical professionals so this is the rough model thats been mapped out, a four phase approach. Ive talked again to the state of new york about it. Ive talked to up there governors about it. Were dispatching the corps to go around that all these other states and, you know, particularly cities because can expandway you capacity in the volume you need. Were talking thousands, but it takes some time. Take a few weeks to do all that and youre also buildersng with local and renovators. Its in between the time from recognition to when you can open up that bed space in the thousands that we can provide along with hhs and others with these mobile hospitals and beds we can provide that capacity to fill the gap until the rest of that is made available. In peru, is the military to air lift americans the way they did in honduras . Well, were talking to the state department about that. What we have to figure out is make sure we have a good protocol for how we approach that. Of china whencase we first pulled u. S. State Department People out of china was state department contracted aircraft and we put them in quarantine at our bases am. The nextthing with of folks. I think the best way is contract state orgh either maybe its fema, weve got to work through that, but were available and if we cant get those other mechanisms to work to provide military aircraft but that will probablyby more on the latter end, the least likely option, the first likely option. Much. You all very a quick note. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to make a statement on the 10th anniversary of the Affordable Care act, but she take the opportunity to talk about the house action on the coronavirus bill. At can see her statement 2 00 p. M. Eastern here on cspan getlater, today, we will another briefing from the house Coronavirus Response task force and the Vice President possibly president trump. That is set for 5 30 eastern. Live coverage. E the senate gaveled in at noon continue working on the coronavirus Economic Relief bill after failing to make itther progress on yesterday. We are expecting a revote on the floor of the senate in just a couple of minutes. For 1 30 eastern to move that legislation forward. You can watch the senate live our companion network, cspan 2. And senator rand paul, Kentucky Republican diagnosed with the virus released a Statement Today that reads in part