Coronavirus: the army as reinforcement, in France and elsewhere

Mulhouse, March 20, 2020: a field hospital is installed by the army to relieve the care centers in the Grand Est, a region very affected by the coronavirus epidemic. SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP

Text by: RFI Follow

In France, the army is also mobilizing to try to relieve hospitals in the regions of France most affected by the epidemic, in this case Corsica and the Great East. In Italy, the United States, and other countries, the military is sometimes called upon to help.

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This Saturday morning, a new military plane took off from the base in Istres, in the south of France. Its destination: Mulhouse. This is the second flight of this type this week, the second flight of an A330 Phoenix MRTT for medical evacuation. Last Wednesday, for the first time on national territory, the device, in its so-called "Morpheus" configuration, evacuated six patients from the intensive care unit of the Mulhouse hospital to Marseille and Toulon.

During this second air medical evacuation this Saturday, six new patients were taken care of by the Brittany squadron . The sick are transported this time to Bordeaux, freeing up precious beds in the intensive care departments overwhelmed by the hospital departments of the Grand-Est.

A military field hospital in Mulhouse

The Armed Forces Health Service will open this Sunday in Mulhouse a military field hospital, a modular tent structure, which can accommodate thirty intensive care beds, supervised by a hundred medical personnel from the armies.

For its part, the French Navy, too, is deploying large resources. The amphibious helicopter carrier Tonnerre , a multi-role ship with a hospital, will set sail this Sunday from Toulon to reach the port of Ajaccio, in Corsica.

The helicopter carrier will transfer a dozen patients to the mainland, where some 117 beds, including forty intensive care beds, have been made available to patients in five military hospitals.

In the United States and elsewhere in the world

In the United States too. Donald Trump has announced that the Mercy and USNS Comfort hospital ships will be deployed as reinforcements. The second bound for New York particularly affected by the epidemic with some 1330 cases, and the first towards California whose governor Gavin Newsom declared the containment.

In Italy, in the region of Lombardy in the north, one of the most affected by the disease, the army was called in as reinforcements to enforce the containment of the population.

In Spain, in Madrid, the most affected region since it accounts for 36% of the total number of cases and 628 deaths), the army will come in reinforcement to transport the bodies of the victims of the virus.

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  • Coronavirus
  • Health and Medicine
  • France
  • Defense