COVID-19: Army Ramps Up Testing, Vaccine R&D « Breaking Defense

WASHINGTON: The Army is ramping up its response to the COVID-19 coronavirus within its ranks and across the nation as the pandemic spreads.

Almost one thousand soldiers have tested positive for the virus – 992 from across the regular active-duty Army, Army National Guard, and  Army Reserve – Sec. Ryan McCarthy and Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said this afternoon. But many, of course, show no symptoms, which puts a premium on testing capabilities.

After a cluster of roughly 50 cases, most asymptomatic, was detected in a single basic training battalion on Fort Jackson, SC the service delivered new testing equipment to the base. Fort Jackson now has a pair of BioFire diagnostic systems, each of which can check one sample for coronavirus per hour, and a pair of the much more potent GeneXpert 16s, each of which can test 16 samples per hour. That’s a theoretical maximum of 816 tests a day if all four systems run continuously for 24 hours, although McConville cited a more manageable daily rate of “over 700.”

Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy (left) and Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville (right) give a briefing on COVID-19 response, April 16, 2020.

Current diagnostic machines can only check for one disease at a time, but the Army is funding private-sector development of a device that can scan for dozens of pathogens at once.

While training continues, the service had stopped bringing new recruits on-base to start basic training. That order went into effect April 6, calling for a two-week pause and then a review – now underway – of whether to restart. The Army has a plan to keep new arrivals largely isolated from other soldiers for their first 14 days of training, but the best way to contain the spread of the disease would be the ability to test prospective recruits and serving soldiers en masse.

Army-wide, the service entered the crisis with nine medical centers that could run large numbers of tests, but it’s now expanded at least some processing capability to 35 sites, said the Army’s Surgeon General, Lt. Gen. Scott Dingle.

To get those samples in the first place, however, you also need test kits, which can be used just once, and which have been in chronically short supply. “Right now,” Dingle said, “we do have enough test kits. However, as we test, they’re going to have to be replenished.”

Meanwhile, the Army continues to deploy forces to assist the national response to the pandemic. McCarthy and McConville said:

• Almost 25,000 National Guard troops – a mix of Army and Air Guard personnel – have been mobilized to support state-level responses.
• More than 7,000 Army personnel are directly supporting Northern Command, which helms the military response to the public health crisis.
• More than 2,000 personnel are working to assess potential sites for ad hoc hospitals and draw up plans, an effort run by the Army Corps of Engineers. The most prominent of these sites, at the Javits Center in New York City, has been criticized for being slow to take on patients and currently holds over 300 COVID-19 cases, out of a theoretical maximum capacity of 1,900.
• More than 2,000 Army Reserve medical and support personnel have been mobilized in 15 Urban Augmentation Medical Task Forces. One remains in reserve and on call, while 14 are deployed or about to deploy: six in New York, three in New Jersey, and one in Connecticut to help contain the NYC hotspot; two in Massachusetts to support Boston; and one each in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
• Two Army field hospitals that were deployed to Seattle but never used because the peak caseload was less horrific than predicted, have been packed back up and will be redeployed where needed. The Army’s new advanced manufacturing center at Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois is 3D-printing face shields and spare parts for ventilators, and its xTechSearch competition is offering prizes for innovative low-cost, low-maintenance ventilator designs.
• Army scientists have developed three “prototype vaccines” and have begun animal testing, with the goal of getting one ready for human trials this summer.

Separately from the secretary and chief of staff’s briefing, the R&D arm of Army Futures Command, the Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC), announced it’s combed through its inventory and sent over 10,000 items of protective gear to the troops manning the Javits Center in New York, including “N95 respirators, surgical-grade face masks, nitrile gloves, disposable lab coats and Tyvek suits, and safety goggles and glasses.” Other CCDC teams are working on alternative face masks, test swabs, and software to support the response.

AFC CCDC – 20.04.16_CCDC_COVID by BreakingDefense on Scribd