FLC | Transcom adapts to move COVID-19 patients safely

Transcom adapts to move COVID-19 patients safely

April 6, 2020

Moving a patient with COVID-19 in an aircraft isn't easy, but the US Army Transportation Command is working to make it safer.

"The movement of a highly contagious patient is a much different challenge," Army Gen. Stephen R. Lyons told reporters via teleconference in late March. "We are also working ... to increase our capacity to be able to meet these kind of requirements, because we know they're increasing."

Patients with COVID-19 can be moved in an air ambulance or with a transportation isolation system, which was designed in response to the Ebola outbreak in 2014, but those systems have limited capacity, he said.

So additional work is being done in partnership with the Air Force, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, NASA, and other agencies to find additional ways for air crews to safely move COVID-19 patients.

"We're working with scientists ... to really study the aircraft circulation flow and the implications of the movement of those particulates and potential impacts on crews, so that we can indeed move COVID-positive patients and passengers without an isolation unit while adequately protecting the crew," Lyons said.

Precautions are being taken to ensure continued health and safety of crews — something Lyons called "isolation in motion."

"The way that we're managing our flight crews is unique in many ways, ... where we billet them is controlled, where they eat from, their food is delivered. So, we're trying to create a very concerted cocoon, if you would, over our entire flight crew apparatus," Lyons said. "And ... that seems to be working to date. It allows us to continue [the] mission and protect the force at the same time."

Air crews arrive at a destination and move directly to their temporary housing, and then they don’t leave until it’s time to depart on the next mission, Lyons said. They don't go out to eat, he said, and they don't leave the installation.

While Transcom is still running its standard mission set, those missions have been augmented by new takings related to coronavirus.

"We are supporting the State Department and their Task Force Repatriation effort," he said. "We have moved things in support of Health and Human Services, for example, [coronavirus] test swabs across the globe. We've helped to move field hospitals that you see being built in places like New York and in the state of Washington. We're proud of all that we do every day."

Despite challenges with the coronavirus, Lyons said, Transcom is still ready to move whatever the DoD needs moved.

"We're still operating the global mobility enterprise," he said. "We still must do that to maintain our level of readiness for the secretary, and, so, I believe we are doing that. I believe we are ready. I've reported to the secretary that we are ready to meet our mission requirements as they come."