I want to start by expressing my sympathy for the Defense Department contractor who passed away this saturday after contracting coronavirus earlier this month. Our thoughts go out to his family and friends as they mourn his tragic loss. Over the weekend the department of defense continued to take aggressive action to surge personnel, capabilities, and equipment in support of trumps whole nation response to the covid19 pandemic. On the frontlines of this fight are over 7,000 National Guardsmen, operating across all 54 states, territories and the district of columbia who continue to assist state and local authorities in their response efforts. In new york, washington, and california, the president has approved mobilizing National Guard troops under title 32 status, which provides them full access to federal resources, but still allows them to be managed by the state 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 supporting drivethru testing sites, conducting food delivery to protect vulnerable populations and helping states plan and coordinate their local responses. Allowing states to maintain control over their National Guard forces is the most effective way to manage their efforts as it permits each governor to tailor the guards activities the best support the needs of their state. Also, as the president announced yesterday, the hospital ship mercy will deploy this week to los angeles working closely with fema to set the conditions for the ships arrival later this week so she can start receiving noncovid19 medical patients to free up bed space in some of l. A. s most heavily stressed hospitals. I spoke with the captain of the mercy last week as he was making final preparations to set sail. The men and women of the mercy had rile trained professionals and are eager to join this fight to start helping their fellow americans. In the next couple of weeks our other hospital ship the comfort will head to new york city for the same purpose. The crew 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 military Field Hospitals and expeditionary military units on prepare to deploy orders. The army corps of engineers is also set to begin work to convert hotels, dormitories and other buildings into temporary medical facilities across the country. U. S. Army north has activated 10 defense coordinating elements, colocated with each fema Regional Headquarters to synchronize requests for federal military assistance. Fema as the lead agency for the federal response will validate and prioritize these requests. The department of defense will then deploy our forces around the country to provide this support as directed. Additionally, the department continues to provide Logistical Support to american citizens around the world. Last friday, for example, we flew members of an u. S. Womens Football Team home from honduras 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. Today, we are elevating the pentagon reservation status to Health Protection condition c. , charlie. This limits the number of Access Points to the pentagon and increases the amount of personnel who would telework among a few other things. Tomorrow, we will publish updated guidance on 11th elective surgeries as we look for additional ways to free up medical capacity and resources to focus on covid19related treatments. In general it is important that we 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 some of our major exercises, 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 Members and dod civilians and families who are answering the call all around our great country. I want to thank them for their contributions to this fight. By working together, we will defeat this virus and i am confident that our nation will come back even stronger. Thank you. Hi, thanks 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. Military is making available and when and where you think they may go . And then secondly, what impact do you think some of this is having on readiness . There are a number of navy sailors who have become ill. Can you just give us an 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 facilities across all cree all services. Three we have put on prepare to deploy orders, five such units that will be prepared to deploy. We will, of course, take our 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 sending to other places and as 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. We are 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 and more impact of persons in our ranks. Im confident that while it may have some impact on readiness it will not affect our ability to conduct our National Security missions both at home and abroad. Im very confident in the fitness and health of our force and the commanders ability to make sure they manage our resources and our people. Keep in mind ive always outlined three. Number one protecting our people, two, Mission Capabilities available to us and the number three, supporting our whole of nation effort. Secretary esper, last week we heard that the army had excess capacity to test, about 16,000 tests they could run a day, but theyre running at a very small amount of that. Why isnt the military helping the civilian labs with testing to ease the back load . And if i could ask a question about afghanistan, why did secretary of state pompeo feel the need to go out to afghanistan . From your perspective, is the socalled peace deal in jeopardy and have you slowed the number of troops coming out of afghanistan . 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 keep the process moving forward. Otherwise, hell be coming back, im sure hell speak to it more broadly once he returns to the United States. On your first question ive already forgotten what the first question was. About testing. So we have 16 labs available. We can test at 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. The issue is test kits and as more of those come on board we can test more, but we have offered again 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. I just want to be clear on 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. There are hospitals being provided by hhs. I forget what exactly they are called put they are hospitals in the sense of beds, bed space, things like that. Those are being provided to seattle and i forget the other location. It might have been new york, as well. We are looking at deploying our Field Hospitals, which include the hospital, the equipment and medical 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 keep in mind, fema is the u. S. 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 to c. At the pentagon. Exactly what that means. I think a lot of us here have been talking about how many people are actually working in the building right now prior to that and where you expect that number is now and where it will go to under c. We can get you those numbers on whos working in the building now. I think it is down considerably maybe , 60 if not more. Im working off numbers i was given last week. There does come with charlie additional measures. We talked about limiting the number of sites. Some screening, we could go to medical screening in terms of temperature testing as people come in. And everybody swiping as they come in so there are a number of things we should be putting out information more today. There is no intent whatsoever, barbara, to limit the access of the press. And we want to keep the building 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. Okay thank you very much. The president yesterday spoke briefly about a hostage who was liberated with the help of the dod. Could you talk about that . Did you say hostage . Yes. We had a young lady, a Young American who was the victim of a Violent Crime in honduras i believe. She has been returned to the United States, and ill just say out of respect for her, and her family, for her privacy, well just leave it at that. Go to barbara. Ive already answered your question, barbara so we can skip you, i guess. Never or hopefully never. You said something really interesting. That you do expect now some impact on readiness. To the best of my recollection, its the first time youve publicly at least said that. So could you just expand a little bit, what are you hearing from your folks about what you expect that impact on readiness to be . And if there is such a thing, how come the Defense Department was like the civilian sector perhaps not better prepared to deal with a pandemic situation . But ive never heard you say before i think we are prepared for a pandemic. We have pandemic plans in place. Weve been exercising them now since late january, if you will. The commanders have been executing their plans. Weve stocked up millions of supplies, the United States military and our strategic stockpile to handle it with regard to pieces of equipment. Lets go back to your first question. What i said is 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 impact on readiness, but nothing to which i fear impacts our Mission Readiness to conduct our national missions. Thats just common sense i think. It depends on how long this lasts, the extent of it, the impact on our population is the other thing i think i mentioned, 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 we take care of them. Thats why ive said from the beginning, number one is taking care of our people because if you cant take care of your people, you cant take care of number two which is safe guarding our national Mission Capabilities. Thats why were exercising a lot of Due Diligence with regard to the health of the force. Just to be clear, is it your sense that the department, you knew by january that covid19 was a pandemic situation . Im not going to i cant think as far back as yesterday let alone two or three months ago. You know, the 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 and we always take precautions. You cant go into deployment without getting multiple checks, whether its dental, physical checks, things like that so were always very conscious of the health of the force before deploying on a military mission. Has there been any consideration towards moving active duty military doctors away from their jobs towards dealing with sort of the coronavirus treatment . And more broadly, you talked about two, three Field Hospitals. How many do you think will be needed . Are we talking dozens . Whats the scale . We only have so much capacity to 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 to safe guard our military capability. With regard to your first question ive said before here , when you look at our Field Hospitals, when you look at the hospital ships, most, many, most, the majority of the people from those ships, the medical professionals will come from the reserves. So were very conscious of where we pull the reserves from. The balance will likely come from active duty military treatment facilities. Were very conscious as we draw people to staff up the ships or the hospitals where were pulling them from because youre taking away from peter to pay paul and you want to make sure you dont have an impact on an area that really needs it simply. Have you used any active duty military doctors so far . When 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. And going back to the phone lines, jeff schoble. From task and purpose. Thank you very much. Mr. Secretary, i know you say you trust commanders to make the appropriate decision, but we found theres no consistency on lower echelons when it comes to either social distancing or how far troops can go on leave on the weekend. Commanders are Still Holding all hands 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 from dod on what to do and what to avoid so that it can slow the spread of this disease . Well, jeff for all of you, theres there will be inconsistencies because every situation is unique. Its unique by the type of unit. Its unique by the mission. Its unique by the location. 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 trust our commanders and our senior ncos, were fully implementing the cdc guidance. We are also working hard to implement the president s 15 day plan for the spread of the virus. There will be inconsistencies, im sure all of you will learn of more inconsistencies, but we continue to emphasize the guidelines provided and we continue to power down to the commanders to do what they think is best. Mr. Secretary a week ago you talked about dod setting aside 5 million masks, 1 million immediately, and then i think you said 2,000 ventilators. Can you give us an update how many have gone out and do you have a sense where theyre going . Yeah, i dont at my fingertips. Weve offered those up. Theyre now in the fema system in terms of responding, but youre right, were offered up 1 million immediately with regard to the respirators and we discussed the ventilators this morning. We are pulling those 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. When the 5 million will be distributed . We can get you off to the side afterward and give you more details as we have them. So followup on social distancing and commanders having control of that. Is there any accountability or do you think any further measures are needed along those lines . You said those are unique situations but we are getting tips about mass being packed and even though they are being screened does that mean they , dont need to be six feet apart or organizations that are deployed to kuwait where theyre having big meetings 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 . Again, you just gave like six different examples of, which theres probably 30 different variables and we could all step into that 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 cant put about a blanket policy, if you will, that we would then apply to everybody because every situation is different. Tell me how i do six feet distancing in a 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, which are some underlying principles and we ask commanders , at all levels, whether youre a young platoon leader like i once was or a Division Commander to use their best guidance and get it down to the force and ask commanders to implement and, by the way, their senior ncos. As we find things that dont make sense we will pull the string on that. Is there anything you found that you have asked to be followed up on . Not yet. Not yet. Weve got time for one more from the phone and one more from the room. On the phone line. Hi, there, thanks again. There are no rules forcewide. Does that also mean theres no forcewide mandate on testing . Has there been any kind of expansion on testing and whether or not more troops are going to be tested in places where there are higher outbreaks than there are right now . Like with the guidance were giving on social distancing and other best practices weve given the same guidance with regard to testing. Theres no need to test, unless you are symptomatic. And if you are symptomatic then you will get a test and thats kind of the general rule weve been following, thats whats been issued across the country, thats the rule we are following here at the pentagon, as well. And well go to tara. Thank you. Could you tell us how many beds the Field Hospitals will have that are going to seattle . And last week, the mercy was on orders already for seattle, but will be going to los angeles instead. Could you walk us through what changed your mind on that particular deployment . And then last as weve seen more Senior Leaders and lawmakers test positive, have you taken the coronavirus test and your results . So ive been screened for temperature numerous times. I have not taken a test. I have been asymptomatic. If i get symptoms i will take the test. Im going to live by the rules given to us by the cdc. Thats number one. Number two was the Field Hospital sizes. So it depends. There are different sizes depending on the circumstance and the type of hospital. The largest we have is the army Field 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 asked about why seattle versus so what i was getting you was my hunch, but again, its fema, its femas call based on i think they have eight critical factors they assess based on where the need is and where the need may be and they were the ones that recommended and made the call that the mercy go to los angeles instead of seattle. A quick followup. If seattle does need a dod hospital and an hhs hospital, shouldnt it also have needed the mercy . Again, i would have to refer you to fema on what their decision tree looks like. All the factors they consider. Were going to support fema in this as we 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. I think hhs is sending hospital support to seattle as well and we would have to just connect with fema or get you, you know, information back to our folks as to why what the criteria is and how they apply. Tots who we are relying on prioritize us. I could tell you, ive spoken with seven, eight nine, 10 governors so far. Each one of them has had requests for Field Hospitals, along the coastline, talking about the need for ships. So we clearly cant meet everybodys needs with what we have in our inventory so we rely on fema to do the assessment, the validation and then the prioritization. I anticipate how i foresee the hospitals being used is during 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 time for a 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 working on right now that in fact, in fact, the general has been discussing with new york city to expand capacity because what were talking about is the need for thousands of beds. We can provide 248. So i see us playing this role where were a gap filler for a few weeks. Once the capacity is met through the other mechanisms, i talked about expanding supply, but you can reduce demand by curtailing 11th surgeries and things like that, we can pull out and go to the next site. Thats how i think it will play out, but were looking at that closely trying to model how this may spread and affect the 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 . They can do things fairly quickly. I dont know all the capabilities of the seabees, but youre talking more i dont want to say purely combat engineers, but construction 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 take existing infrastructure and convert it. The state of new york has been very aggressive. Theyve already identified sites. The corps is assessing the sites. The corps can quickly go in and theyve got a four phase model. Stage one is to identify the site, thats the states responsibility. Number two is where they build, the corps builds with femas help. They go and they run additional electrical lines. They set up wifi. They can reconfigure the synchronize of the building to set up nurses station, monitoring stations, etc. Third phase, fema comes in, provides medical equipment. The medical supplies, etc. And then 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 thats the way you can expand capacity in the volume you need. Were talking thousands, but it takes some time. It will take a few weeks to do all that and youre also contracting with local builders and renovators. Its in between the time from problem 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 going 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. Nearly in the case of china when we first pulled u. S. State Department People out of china it was state department contracted aircraft and we put them in quarantine at our bases am. The same thing with the next swath of folks. We have to look at what the best way and i think the best way is contract air through either state or maybe its fema, weve got to work through that, but were always available and if we cant get those other mechanisms to work to provide military aircraft but that will probably be more on the latter end, the least likely option, than the first likely option. Thank you all very much