29, when hundreds of american citizens were evacuated from wuhan and quarantined in california. Since then we have been doing everything in our power to protect their personnel, families, and the American People during this challenging time. I would like to provide an the response to the pandemic. S big over 50,000 Service Members are working tirelessly to help protect the American People. We continue to stay ahead of and remain responsive to the requests of state and local authorities so we meet the need as the situation changes around the country. Our most important resource in this fight continues to be the brave men and women of the u. S. Military. To date we have employed over 4000 doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel across all components to bolster the capacity of some of the nations most severely affected areas. I have had numerous conversations with both Governor Cuomo and mayor de blasio, as we continue to surge resources into new york city and make adjustments to our operations. We have provided over 2100 medical personnel to support the city including over 300 working in the 11 different civilian hospitals to reinforce new yorks own medical staff. While much of the work has been understandably focused on new york we are pivoting to ensure other hotspots around the country are receiving the support they need. Due date, i have spoken to date, i have spoken to over 20 governors, and this afternoon i will be speaking to the governor of guam, who has been incredibly supportive of our sailors in guam. Deploying 14tly medical taskforces to priority regions. Six of those are allocated to new york, three to new jersey, two to massachusetts, one to connecticut, one ot, to chicken and one one to michigan and one to pennsylvania. The army corps of engineers remains very busy with more than 15,000 personnel engaged across the country. The core is currently conducting 25 facilities that will add over 15,500 beds in cities like new york city, detroit, and chicago. Last week the core leadership met with Florida Governor desantis to it would provide 450 beds. Meanwhile nearly 30,000 National Guard troops are hard at work performing essential testing, planning, and support tasks in all 50 states, three territories, and the district of columbia. Our National Guardsmen have helped construct nearly 150 alternate care facilities providing over 83,000 extra beds for covid19 patients, while also disturbing food to local communities and medical supplies to civilian hospitals. The department has delivered 10 million n95 masks to hhs and fema and is prepared to provide 10 million more. We received approval for our First Defense production act project come investing 133 million to increase production of n95 masks over 39 million in the next 90 days. This will help ensure our government has the industrial capacity to meet the nations needs. Additionally we awarded a 415 Million Contract for 60 criticalcare decontamination systems, which will be able to sterilize a total of nearly 5 million n95 respirators per day. This will allow medical profession or to reuse masks up to 20 times and will reduce the nations need for new inventory. Six decontamination units have been delivered to cities including new york, columbus, boston, chicago, and to, and the rest should and tacoma. From the beginning of the outbreak going back to january, the department of defense has worked hard to remain ahead of need. I want to commend the entire northcom team for their entire efforts as they spearhead the departments response to the coronavirus. While we continue to support the whole of government response to our, pandemic, we continue Important Missions such as performing Counterterrorism Missions from africa to the know to the middle east and afghanistan, conducting operations and controlling the high seas to ensure freedom of navigation around the globe, monitoring north korean weapons tests, improving our defensive posture in iraq, escorting russian bombers out of u. S. Airspace, working with our Afghan National defense and security forces, and Resolute SupportMission Partners in afghanistan, continuing to enhance counter narcotics operations, working with our nato allies in europe, and continuing to defend our interests in space. Last month the space force launched its first satellite into orbit. As we continue all this, we are focused on protecting our people. Yesterday we retweet we o give more aid t clarity on how to confront covid19. We call it the first it was issued on january 30, two days before the Global Pandemic plans were activated, and weeks before the First American succumbed to the virus here in the u. S. We are currently working to modify an extended stop Movement Order restricted domestic and International Travel for all dod personnel. While i understand the impact this has on our troops and their families, this is a necessary measure to keep our people safe and are military ready to act. We will continue to remain flexible and agile as we work to defeat this invisible enemy. It will take time but we will get through this, and we will get through this together and stronger as a result. I want to thank all our Service Members and their families for their patients, understanding nce, andatie understanding. Everyone please take care of yourselves and one another. Thank you and i will turn it over now to german mi chairm an milley. Gen. Milley let me express my deepest condolences on behalf of the entire American People for the loss of a sailor on a tr to covid19. A tragic loss and our condolences go out to his family and our thoughts and prayers are with the entire crew. For the military, for those of us in uniform, the secretary just rattled off a lot of data, a lot of very, very important points that i hope people take to heart, because the level of efforts of the u. S. Military is significant in battling this. We have an obligation to protect the American People regardless of the enemy. In this case covid19 is the enemy, a virus. Severalou have heard people talking about this being a war, we are in fact at war against a virus. We are a supporting organization. We are in support of civil authorities, in this case specifically fema and hhs and other civil authorities to include governors, municipality leaders, etc. We will continue to do that. At the same time we do that, we will continue to do our Mission Assignments around the world, in asia, europe, middle east, etc. Our readiness is still high, still strong, and we are able to deter and defeat any challenges to take advantage of these opportunities at this point of crisis. So i want to thank all the troops that are out there, the 50,000 or so involved in covid19. 140 countries around the world right now, and the other couple one million in uniform in some capacity in the active guard and reserve for their dedication and commitment to this country. With that, we will go ahead and take your questions. Sec. Esper we are going to go to the phone lines first. First, can we ask whoever it is that is playing some sort of recording to go on mute, because we cannot hear what you are saying. Sec. Esper we will get that taken. We are going to go back to the room and just go straight. You mentioned you may pivot to other areas now. Can you give us a sense . You said you talked to 20 governors. Where do you think the next areas will be . And also early on the pentagon said they would be the last resort. Clearly civilian agencies, civilians would take over the brunt of this virus. Now you are clearly all in. With the mercy seeing some crewmembers testing positive, as theyre concerned you could see similar things in field hospitals and other things if the that the military is providing . Sec. Esper i will take the first question first. We are looking at putting two urban army medical taskforces into boston. We are looking at deploying personnel to miami. I mentioned some other places where we are. Chicago maybe. But fema makes that decision, not us. There are other cities we are just trying to lean forward into and stay ahead of. By the time these cities make the news, we expect we will already be there. Is to stay ahead of our going plan our game plan is to stay ahead of it. On your second point, it is a great question. It strategy going into this, is a strategy we formulated with our medical professionals that we had talked to, at least i had talked to some governors about, that we would go in, we would use the corps of engineers to develop bed capacity, and then we would bring in, in the case of new york and l. A. Respectively, the ships would come up to provide additional capacity and doctors. Keep in mind, and Governor Cuomo has talked a lot about this, as has mayor de blasio, the original thinking was we would keep those facilities covidfree and home handle the trauma roomnts, thus freeing up in the hospitals because they have things you need to treat people with coronavirus. What we came to find early is that we are not seeing trauma patients because people are not leaving their homes. They are not getting into car wrecks and stuff like that. Wen what we realized too, so have adapted our strategy every step of the way in close coordination with state and local authorities. We found it is difficult to determine when a patient came into either the javits or the comfort. It was hard to tell they had covid are not. Patientst denying access but we wanted to at least provide the ship up. So we kept one side clean and one side not clean. But the strategy is changing. On one hand the success has been that the measures taken by the states and localities at the direction of the president , the 15 day that became the 30 day, change your practices, no gatherings of 10 or more, 6 feet of social distancing, it looks like it has flattened the curve. So the states have the bed capacity, at least that is what we are hearing from new york. They have the bed capacity. But what has obviously become strain and stress are these hardworking nurses and doctors and respiratory therapists and everybody who has been at this now for weeks, and theyre getting burned out and worn down, and they are being treated to the coronavirus themselves. That is where we have pivoted in the last week or so to move our doctors. We are moving a portion of our doctors off the comfort and putting them into the new york City Hospitals to provide relief. We are looking at a threephase plan. On one hand you a bed, which is what we are doing we are embedding our doctors and nurses into the hospitals to help them out or provide relief. The other is where we expand a facility, and connecticut is a place where we are expanding a wing of a facility. Then there is the traditional model, the one we began with. Our challenge is to keep adapting as we see the states adapt, and as they see their medical staff and bed capacity and all these things play out. I think as we go city by city, we are going to see this same dynamic happening. So a challenge will be to keep your personnel. Sec. Esper look, we are seeing some attrition from the civilian hospitals. I do not know what that number is off the top of my head, but i anticipate we will see some as well. Maybe not as much because as i have said, for the most part, at least for active duty forces, they are fairly healthy and fit, and may a different demographic. But i think we will see some attrition. And we have accounted for that. We have been talking about that a lot internally in the meetings we have about what is attrition over time, because as you all heard me say before, i told you weeks ago, i think we will be moving to city to city to city as it moves. We are now seeing it move. And our challenge is we bring the ability to quickly pick up and move not just people, but we can move equipment and hospitals to do that. We tried to anticipate is as we move, do we end up leaving some behind, doctors, because they had become infected, they have to going to quarantine, etc. We want to preserve capacity as much as we can to help American People as we move around the country. We are going to go back to the phones one more time. Thanks a lot. Millie,ndering, general if you can talk general milley, if you can talk about having the truman not port. Will you have to do this with more ships in order to keep them virusfree . And can you talk about any reserves . And are you reconsidering not doing stop loss . Gen. Milley on the harry s truman, i think we have about 90 or so u. S. Naval ships at sea right now, in various types of ships. T. R. As you know has been sidelined temporarily, but we can get it out to sea if we need to. But we made a decision to keep the harry s. Truman at sea. So we have at least two carriers at sea. Which wes the nimitz, expect to set sail shortly. The navy made that announcement i believe yesterday. That was a conscious, deliberative operational decision to make sure we had Carrier Strike group capability at sea at this moment in crisis. The only significant covid19 issues we are having on any of the ships is with the t. R. The other ships right now at sea of theidfree as latest reports i have. Sec. Esper on the stoploss question, it is a last resort. If we had to get to that point it would be focused likely on medical professionals, but i do not see that is likely, quite frankly. We still have some depth in our reserves. We had a report sent to me today by the army, we have retirees who are volunteering. Medical professional medical retired professionals volunteering. We are seeing folks standing up and volunteering to help the American People, and i think we will be able to handle this pandemic with what we have now. But i also cannot predict the future, so that is where we stand. Paul, reuters. [inaudible] hear him. Cannot back in the room. How long willry, you extend the stop order . Continuing to monitor north korea tests. Can you update us on what happened overnight . South korea said there was a series of cruise missiles, both ground and air launch. And do you assess what can you tell us about the timing of this test . Is it because of coronavirus . Are they exploiting vulnerabilities . Sec. Esper on the first part yes, we want to make sure we have a more comprehensive wing, which we aggress address exemptions. I do not want to give any final dates yet. We will probably have our undersecretary for the personnel come into brief you. We are still finally that finalizing that. The important thing is as this virus unfolds and as our mitigation efforts take place and as testing happens, etc. , this is something i committed and he will see it also in the updated memo, that we will be reviewing this. The joint staff and osd staff will be teaching this up for me every 15 days to review, to see if we can curtail it sooner or if we need to extend it further and are extended further. The key thing extended it further extend it furhter. The first order expires may 11. We want to give folks sufficient time to make adjustments and to socialize with them. We will be extending beyond the may 11 day. We will be coming back to you in the next couple days with more detail. Thats right, we will be extending it. Gen. Milley on your question with the missiles, like we do for any missile coming out of anywhere, we monitor it very closely and conduct the analysis. It usually takes a couple days. Southk closely with the Korean Military on that. I have had an opportunity to talk about it. It is mixed in terms of the assessment right now. I do not think it is particularly provocative or threatening to us, as to what happened. It may be tied to some celebrations happening inside north korea, as opposed to any deliberate provocation against us. Another day or two it should be clear in terms of what we pick up in the intel. You cannot say anything . Gen. Milley these were short range. They were not any big missiles. Going to go back to the phones, see if phil from reuters. [inaudible] ok, back to the room. A quick followup. Since the tr is the only ship toh covid cases, any plans punish the officer who ordered the ship to go into vietnam, or the officers that compromised the Aircraft Carrier . And for both of you, do you have any evidence the virus began in a chinese lab, and maybe was released accidentally . Inspectors all over the world inside Nuclear Facilities. Is it time to have those kind of inspectors in bio labs like the ones in wuhan . Gen. Milley as you know the investigation was conducted at my direction. It was completed last week. It is with a cno last week. I do not know where it will go or where it will take us but expect it will be comprehensive. And with regards to the lab . Gen. Milley on the first one by the way, that is going to be standard. I know everyone has a lot of questions on that on the tr. But for the secretary and i and anyone else on the chain of command, theres an active, Ongoing Investigation in the hands of the cno. Until such time the cno renders his findings and recommendations to the secretary of defense, the chain of command needs to, as a matter of law, custom, and tradition, be silent until such time as the outcome. Secondly on the lab peace, there piece, theres a lot of rumor and speculation in a wide variety of media, blog sites, etc. It should be no surprise to you that we have taken a keen interest in that, and we have had a lot of intelligence take a hard look at that. I would say at this point it is inconclusive, although the weight of evidence seems to indicate natural, but we do not know for sure. What about having inspectors in bio labs . Do you think it is time to do that, like we do for Nuclear Facilities . Sec. Esper i think that is something that needs to be looked at after the fact. At some point there will be a Lessons Learned that needs to be conducted. We have already begun tried to caption capture Lessons Learned so we can adjust our Global Pandemic campaign plans, etc. That is something to take a look at. Theiae stuff is bound by Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty, so it is connected to that. Thehave to think what is regime that is bound to. That is something i would defer to the state department to comment on. Assuming this would be some kind of treaty mechanism. That is something i would defer to the state department on. Then theom usa today, washington post. Why yourondering office approved the waiver to guam, and why that is an appropriate use of Government Resources for short stay on guam . Sec. Esper i do not approve trips for any of my Senior Leaders. But i will say this much. I encourage Senior Leaders from all the services to travel. It is vitally important that they get out, that they visit with their troops on the ground, they get drowned truth as to what is they get ground truth as to what is happening. I traveled a lot just for that purpose. Many of you travel with me. It is invaluable to get that kind of experience and exposure. So, i support if not urge my Senior Leaders to get out and travel. Washington post. Hi, thank you for doing this. Just a clarification and then a question. General milley, i think you said it did not seem there were any cases on any of the 90 ships at sea, excluding the roosevelt of course. Just to clarify, what about the other carriers . Any suspected or confirmed cases on carriers such as even if they are important, such as are in p ort, such as the reagan . And are you confident that the state that the guidance or the parameters that have gone down the chain regarding grooming and wearingre all masks are they where they need to be . We keep hearing reports of and challenge up in the social distancing guidelines we hear from other parts of the government. Sec. Esper lets take the last question first and i will speak first. We have issued the 8th iteration of guidance. The first went out january 30 to commanders with regard to following cdc guidance and all the proper practices. We have issued out many others since then over time, anticipating this question might come up again. I asked the commanders and Service Secretaries yesterday, do you feel you have sufficient guidance from me . Some of it is guidance, some of it is terms. Unequivocally everyone said they had sufficient guidance. Keep in mind, the guidance i give is not to some young captain or whatever. It is the guidance i give to fourstar commanders or Service Secretaries who have expansive staff, medical staffs, who can help further amplify and further push down to each successive level the guidance. So i feel that the guidance has been sufficient. Going out we have been very clear. We have not only put out their directives, we have put out to town halls, social media, we have amplified through every other kind of means. The broader question is implementation, which is always a challenge. We have a director that says right now, we did it last week, face coverings. But right now not everyone has face coverings and not everyone is necessarily 6 feet apart. Implementation is always a challenge, particularly in an organization with 2. 2 one million people, in 140 countries around the world, a variety of different missions. You name it. I talked before about how you get 6 feet distancing on a sub or a carrier. The challenge will always be implementation. The key thing is to keep pushing it, keep amplifying it, so everybody gets the word. And the commanders at successive levels as you go downward keep pushing it out and keep filling in the blanks, implementing the guidance based on what is happening at their organization. But again, i think it has been sufficient, my commanders think and itbeen sufficient, is completely consistent with how we have done guidance in the past on any number of things in terms of being in terms of how it was delivered and the content and the formulation. I do not know if you want to add anything to that. Gen. Milley for the record for those watching on tv, this was measured at 6 feet. I would have preferred eight, but six is what is. And i have my mask by the way, but that is afterwards. Let me say i think the guidance is sufficient. We have relied for 2. 5 centuries on commanders and leaders issuing guidance and subordinate hers subordinates obeying that. Thequestion that you had on ships at sea, the reports i have as i mentioned upfront, only the tr is reporting any significant amounts of covid. We did have a single sailor, one sailor on the limits tested on the nimitz tested positive but he was out of state and not on the nimitz, and he remains outofstate. A second sailor displayed symptoms, and that sailor was placed into isolation and is not on the ship. So that is the nimitz. All the other ships at sea are reporting zero at this time. Interestingly too is the cruiser tr, somebody the asked about a port call earlier. The cruiser with the tr in danang, they report zero as well. So we are confident right now. Let me also mention that the navy, what the navy is doing to implement for future deployments. So, all the ships crews are going into isolation for 14 days, with a particular emphasis fleet,ssbns and the sub especially the Nuclear Triad piece of that. And all of those crews are being tested prior to setting sail as tests become available. We are doing the same thing with other critical components of the Nuclear Triad, the bomber force, the highend tier one forces, and some Rapid Deployment forces. A prioritization of the force for testing and quarantine to ensure we have the adequate capability and readiness to rapidly deploy if we need to for any given contingency. Megan and barbara. Given so many of the given many others were asymptomatic when they were tested, are you ramping up testing, if you have a squadron that has a case, testing everyone in the squadron . Gen. Milley you raise an important fact. I think out of the cases right only a little over 213 are symptomatic. About that. They are people who have tested positive, over 300, just moving around. These things could apply for all of us. We are understanding more about the virus as we look at the roosevelt. And we are looking at i think the chairman has talked about tiere expand testing, with one forces, Strategic Forces deploying. We have had a couple of meetings. The key is expanding the test kits, making sure there are different types of test analyzers, getting that in place to do, making sure we have what we need to address people who are symptomatic first, but then carry our forces because we have to maintain mission readiness. Gen. Milley right now, capability wise, i think it is 8700, 9000 or so tests a day. We can test in our dod labs. Objective here of 60,000 that up to about tests in about 45 days or so. To get your point about testing, our desire, our aspiration, is to expand testing, especially for groups that are going to probably be in tighter quarters, such as sub crews, bomber crews, basic trainees, and things like that. That is what the prioritization piece is all about. Hopefully we will get after that here in the next 45 days. We are rapidly increasing the months of testing. Sec. Esper the last point the chairman makes is very important. It is not just nearterm readiness of Strategic Forces. Basic training coming into the system, coming into the pipeline the ability to test them is important for future readiness. Those are soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines. We need to flush out especially our high demand, low density units. Was a video at the barbershop circulating from Camp Pendleton yesterday. The marines for all maybe one or two feet away from each other. Is that a situation where you might want to ask the commandant sec. Esper thank you. Going to get a call. We looked at i hope you had seen it. Sec. Esper there is no doubt in my mind you could go to any camp , bass, and find somebody not following the guidance. Gen. Milley b role. Roll. Sec. Esper our job is to educate the chain of command. Im sure the commandant is already on it. If not, the chairman is going to give him a call and say, what is going on . What dont you understand . Suspend haircuts for whatever period of time. That is the type of guidance you need to meet. Gen. Milley dont take that as guidance yet. A lot of places, a lot of ways to do haircuts. Sec. Esper but that is something i would not have thought of putting in the guidance is the haircut policy, right . It is stuff like that, where you find people close together, that you could find a way to do it or not require it for a period of time. Ofi want to know how both you are getting haircuts. It is a mirror with a thing. A barber clip thing. Mr. Secretary, and also for general milley you mentioned you are going to take a look at restrictions every 15 days or so. Right now, you said there is about a 45 day period in which we are going to ramp up testing. First question. What is the framework that you were thinking over these 15 days and 45 days. You make decisions about reopening things, will it be because communities around the country, will you work with local states and governors, the administration . What will be the framework of your thinking . I wanted to ask you as you look ahead to the future, how the military will operate, going this pandemic, does it change your thinking at all about what is a National Security threat . Do you go back to socalled business as usual, or do these kinds of situations, which have been literally global, change your thinking about what is a threat and how you respond to them . Sec. Esper it is a very good question. We are looking at a number of factors. The science what do we know about the virus . How is it moving . If you go back to january, even mid to late january, the w. H. O. Said no indication of human to human transmission. We now know that is wrong. We have talked to megan raised the effect on the tr, 505 sailors, only 213 were symptomatic. That tells you things about the virus we need to know. There is the science piece of it. There is the testing capacity. By the way, testing capacity, in terms of whether you have it or not the other part is, do you have the antigens . That could give some clarity as it. Hether you had i am trained to manage the expectations. A 2. 2 million person force, maybe a majority is married with kids. It would have to get the number. There is a lot more people infected by this affected by this, people who have suspended their lives, who are anticipating a move to get settled in their new communities, their new school, by august, september. We are trying to take all these factors into account. At the same time, we have force units moving around out there. Units, families, individuals going to school. How do we balance that out . They are not moving within a community. They are moving globally. That is another factor. It will be a multitude of factors. A difference in what scientists and doctors are telling us. Protecting our communities will be task number one. Is it at least 45 days because you want to see the testing regimen in place first . Sec. Esper not necessarily. What i am trying to say is we dont know how this will play out. In new york, the governor thinks it is plateauing. In other states, it is moving. I want to make sure i can do at least my top two missions protect my people and ensure the readiness of my force, before i start moving people around and having people conduct pcs moves. I want to make sure i can do this with a high degree of confidence that i will not further spread the virus and contaminate units and communities, while at the same time i anticipate we will continue to support the American People by being out in americas towns and cities. Gen. Milley barbara, when we get in the backside of this, whenever that happens, we intend to lead an after action review, a term you are familiar with. The military does this frequently. We hope to lead an interagency, all of government type interaction review. There will be Lessons Learned at the operational, jessica level, public affairs. I deal with subs, brigades, and so forth. There will be a lot of Lessons Learned from all of this. Too early to do that. We have activated some of our units to do that. We do intend to do that rigorously. Your question about is it back to business as usual i dont see that. I dont see how the effect this is had on the economy, the fact we are sitting here while six feet apart, people wear masks, shutdowns of major metropolitan areas this is happening overseas. There are people out there in states that are very fragile, that are in various states of civil war, who have violence internal to their societies. There is stress as a result of this covid19 virus on the politics, the internal Politics Around the countries. Increasedn probability or risk of instability, significant instability in some countries. It is not going to be business as usual. We have got to take a hard look at how we as a military, we as a department of defense, conduct operations in the future, and what we need to do in order to apply this and implement them, so that we can continue to be world,ve in a post covid or the next part of it. The second part of that is all the logistics. Think about masks, gloves, ventilators, and all the supplies. We have kicked in 10 million drinks. Was two or 3000 ventilators. All the medical support. We have to think through all of that. Augmentation task force is an Innovative Solution to this particular solution. Stockpiles,nishing bringing back Critical Infrastructure and manufacturing , things that may be vulnerable, like pharmaceuticals. A lot of the masks you are , you areight now manufacturing in the states. This is not just for the uniformed military and the department of defense, but for the whole government. We need to think through in the coming months and implement as time goes on. Where are you the most concerned right now . Gen. Milley there are areas we are involved afghanistan, iraq, syria. There. Re u. S. Troops there is Violence Associated there. This pandemic where this virus is taking hold in some of the societies. You see some of the data come out of iran. Iraq is on the others. You can extrapolate some of the data from iran and maybe think about what effect is happening in societies like iraq and afghanistan. We dont have as good insight into north korea as we do other countries, we are convinced they are challenged as well. Much of america is focused inward, taking care of our families, our communities, our cities, one another. We are still focused not just inside, but outside. Every day, we get intelligence reports. I still have the National SecurityMission First and foremost in my mind, along with protecting our people. That remains our challenge in this world. There are some parts of the world that claim to be unaffected, and maybe they are, or they are just not aware of how problem is. It is changing politics, societies, and we have to be vigilant that nobody does something dumb, nobody tries to act out in a way that could affect their interests are our country. Ourre very keen, watching respective parts of the world, our responsibilities to ensure National Security is taking care of. I just wanted to go back to the decision the dod made to deploy the comfort and the mercy , as trauma sites, earlier in this process. You made a decision to reverse that now. Decision,ade that they were already enacting pretty aggressive social distancing measures that would have limited some of these trauma incidents. Dod aware of that, and why are you moving personnel into local hospitals instead of keeping them on site . Sec. Esper we are responding to what state and local authorities are calling for, in this case, new york. You have to go back to where we were a few weeks ago when the comfort first deployed. At that time, new york was still not knowing where the apex of the curve would be, not knowing whether it would be above the Hospital Capacity or below it. Shift the comfort of their. We deployed hospital units out there. Bedre concerned about capacity. My assessment, the governors assessment, the mayors assessment is they have the capacity in terms of heads. It is the doctors they do not have capacity for. They came to us and said we do not have the beds. We said we would redeploy our doctors to your hospital. We are going to be as responsive as we can. It would be foolish to be dogmatic. We have to keep the doctors or the nurses on the ship while we have needs in hospitals. We are being responsive as we can. Our folks want to help. They want to be there alongside their civilian counterparts. Gen. Milley in this case, the family situation with the mayors signal governors put a in to the northcom commander, and the virus itself. As the military take great pride in our flexibility. What the secretary previously described embedding doctors in civilian hospitals, expending civilian Hospital Capacity, and literally creating new hospitals. To jeff from task and purpose. Jeff thank you for doing this. Before april 5 marines claim now they are using social distancing. Up by askinglow secretary esper, do you think it is Mission Essential to get haircuts during a covid pandemic . Could a Lance Corporal tell you all of the useful the useless things marines do that put their lives in danger in a pandemic . Gen. Milley let me take that for you, mr. Secretary. Sec. Esper do you want me to issue instructions on haircuts . Is that what you want . Jeff i like to know whether you think it is Mission Essential for marines to get a haircut during a pandemic. Gen. Milley whether they are marines or soldiers or airmen or sailors, discipline is a fundamental function of our force. For many, many years, the United States military has had higher standards. I will let the marines, as a service, answer your question. But yes, i think marines should get haircuts for the present standpoint. As the son of a Navy Corpsman who hit the beach in iwo jima with the fourth marine division, it took extraordinary discipline to conquer that island, with 7000 marines killed in 19 or 20 years. That was a result, that marine oftory, was a result incredible discipline of americas expeditionary force. It may seem superficial to some, but getting a haircut is part of that discipline. I support the marine corps. I will let the marines, and answer themselves, but i certainly support it. David, cbs. David could you go back over the numbers on medical personnel . I thought i heard you say you have about 4000 medical personnel deployed right now. I assume that includes active duty and reserves. How far into the total population of Health Providers are you . Sec. Esper our total number chairman, you have numbers done pretty well. Doctors, we have 13,000 in the active reserve components. We need to man our medical treatment facilities, doctors deployed abroad, doctors deployed on ships. To a lower number. You come down to what is available in the active or reserve. You start getting to a much lower number. I think last week this time, we probably thought we had 2000 or so, maybe 3000, medical professionals of one shape or form doctors, nurses, respiratory nurses, its a drug. We have called up many, many more people since then. Number, mr. W the chairman, you have. It is probably 2000 or so roofing or so remaining in the force that are available for deployment. Look at seattle, where a 250 bed and readys packed up to be redeployed. We are starting to see redeployments, and we also see volunteers coming forward. We have another 2000, plus or can dig into those numbers and give you a more accurate number. I have two questions for you for clarification. Yesterday, the south korean government sent coronavirus tests to the United States. Do you have any intention for these . States, when it comes to south koreas proposed 30 increase with hospital care sec. Esper ill take the second question and say the department of state are leading the negotiations. I have been involved to the extent i have spoken with my counterpart. My view remains that south korea is a close and trusted ally of ours, but they are another country. They can and should pay more to help for our Regional Defense and their specific defense. On the first question, i think we deeply appreciate supplies, assistance of our allies, and that we give to them. We have done a lot with allies italy, romania, various continents. We are providing a lot of bio surveillance. I have spoken with many allies in europe, asia, and elsewhere, about how we can do more, renting a production that will give us the ability to share those supplies and materials abroad. With , im speaking there is a nato defense minister meeting i will be speaking at. We want to Work Together and cooperate together to make sure we get through this as clearly and safely as we can to the end state we want, back to his normal as we can. Thank you very much. The essential screening for the military team that went to wuhan gen. Milley im not aware. In november, in wuhan . [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] leitz thent Trump White HouseCoronavirus Task force briefing this afternoon, scheduled for 5 00 eastern. You can watch it here on cspan. Washington journal primetime a special evening edition of the washington journal on the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. Our guests are all street journal correspondent john debtbrandt on government incurred to combat the economic woes. An university at buffalo associate professor on her research into the effects on gig economy workers. During the conversation tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Cspan has roundtheclock coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic, and it is all available on demand at cspan. Org coronavirus. Watch white house briefings, updates from governors and state officials. Track the spread throughout the u. S. And the world with interactive maps. Much on demand any