3 September
The Michigan National Guard is helping the state Department of Health and Human Service (MDHHS) in testing food workers living in migrant housing camps for Covid-19. The US state has a Latino population of about 5%. The guard members have been testing any resident and several members of the migrant population. 23 airmen from Task Force 182 have been administering the free tests to Ottawa County inhabitants. MDHHS director Robert Gordon said: “The men and women who work in our fields and food processing plants are at particular risk for Covid-19, and they need and deserve protection.”
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The US Department of Defense (DOD) has awarded a contract to Copan Industries to expand the industrial production capacity of flock tip testing swabs in the country in support of domestic Covid-19 testing. With the $10m contract, the company will be able to set up production capacity of flock tip swabs in Puerto Rico. This will take the total capacity to 14.4 million swabs a month by February 2021. The effort is led by the DOD’s Joint Acquisition Task Force (JATF), in coordination with the Department of the Air Force’s Acquisition Covid-19 Task Force (DAF ACT).
The South Korean Ministry of Defence (MOD) has said that military doctors will serve at nine civilian health facilities in the Seoul area to treat Covid-19 patients, reported The Korean Herald. The move comes at a time when the number of positive cases is increasing, and trainee doctors are on strike leaving the facilities understaffed. The MOD said military Capital Hospital in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province will begin taking critically ill civilian patients and also provide additional beds and doctors when available.
