NORTHCOM commander vows military will look after health workers ‘like they’ve taken care of us’
Gen. O’Shaughnessy: Focused on reconfiguring USNS Comfort to handle COVID-19 capacity
‘We’ve adapted our fire,’ says Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, U.S. Northern Command, discussing how the USNS Comfort crew has adapted to treating coronavirus patients
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Air Force Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, the commander of U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), vowed Tuesday that the U.S. military is ready to protect and serve health care professionals fighting the coronavirus pandemic.
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«Normally we have our fighter pilots, other folks, soldiers, going out in harm’s way,» O’Shaughnessy told «Outnumbered Overtime» host Harris Faulkner. «In this case, the doctors and the nurses who are normally supporting us in the backfield are actually the ones in the front lines.»
O’Shaughnessy added that service members are making sure the men and women battling the virus have the right personal protective equipment and training.
«We know they are going in harm’s way and some of them will be impacted,» he stated. «But we are going to be there for them just like we’re there for the New York citizens.
«We’ll take care of them just like they’ve taken care of us for so many different operations that we’ve been in,» O’Shaughnessy concluded.
According to the Pentagon, about 2,500 National Guard troops have been deployed to New York City along with hundreds of active-duty medical personnel. New York state is now arguably the global epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, with more confirmed coronavirus cases than Italy.
Also Tuesday, a crew member, aboard the Naval hospital ship USNS Comfort was confirmed to have tested positive for the virus, just one day after President Trump and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the ship would start accepting all patients regardless of their COVID-19 status.
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Right now the ship has 41 patients onboard. However, its capacity has been slashed in half — from 1,000 beds to 500 — due to its repurposing to accept coronavirus patients.
The city’s Javits Convention Center — now a makeshift hospital — currently hosts 60 patients with a 2,500-bed capacity.
