Pentagon lays out troop-testing plan; Iran orbits first satellite; Blue Angels vs. COVID; Ousted vaccine leader turns whistleblower; And a bit more.
The U.S. military finally has a plan for testing all of its servicemembers for COVID-19, and it will take pretty much the entire summer to complete, the Washington Post’s Missy Ryan reported Wednesday evening. Testing, of course, is the first step for officials who need an accurate picture of infections within a given group of people so that follow-on mitigation measures can be most effective.
The plan is broken into four “tiers,” and nuclear forces and special operators will get tested first. Those in combat zones abroad (Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, e.g.) and personnel involved in the stateside coronavirus response are in the second tier. The third tier concerns “troops located overseas on priority missions and those being brought back to the United States following deployments,” Ryan reports. “[A]ll remaining troops would make up the last tier.”
Tier 1 forces are expected to be tested by the end of the month, Gen. John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Wednesday. “To get to the entire force, the 1.4 million active duty and the entire [National] Guard and Reserve, is going to take us into the summer, but I think we’ll get to the deploying, redeploying forces, the forces engaged, all of the tier one forces next month,” Hyten said.
Why not everyone all at once? “It is a supply issue right now, which is causing us not to be able to go down the full spectrum of all of the forces,” Hyten said. Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist said he couldn’t be certain, but he believes the department is gearing up for a testing capacity of about 50,000 personnel per week. “And as we learn more about the virus, we will continue to evolve our approach,” he said. More from WaPo, here.
The U.S. Navy is dealing with coronavirus cases on 26 US Navy warships, CNN reported Wednesday. Another 14 ships’ crews have been hit by the virus, too, but the crew members impacted have recovered, a senior Navy official said.
ICYMI on Monday, the U.S. Army resumed its basic training courses after a two-week delay — but that resumption is happening “at reduced capacity.” This means, according to the Army’s statement, "Recruits from areas considered low-risk will be able to continue movement to training bases. Those who are in high risk areas will be rescheduled for future dates."
What also changes for the Army:
- Recruits will be screened at regular intervals by their recruiters and military entry processing staff for 14 days prior to “shipping out”;
- And BCT cadre are now front-loading two weeks of classroom training for a quarantine-themed start to basic. Find the Army’s full statement, here.
Don’t be that guy. Three U.S. soldiers were demoted for sneaking off to a bar in South Korea, and they were caught after returning through a hole in the base’s fence at Camp Humphreys, Business Insider reported Wednesday. The three soldiers were docked pay and demoted to E-1 (two of them were E-2s, and the other was an E-3); they were also given 45 days of extra duty, and were punished separately for not reporting that hole in the fence.
The Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds could be coming to a city near you. It’s part of a new Pentagon plan to stir up patriotism and associated warm feelings toward paramedics and the military in this time of the coronavirus, according to a memo obtained by the Washington Post’s Dan Lamothe on Wednesday.
It’s called Operation America Strong, and its ostensible purpose is “to thank first responders, essential personnel, and military service members as we collectively battle the spread of COVID-19.”
There’s a fine line the military is trying to walk with this operation, the Post noted, because President Trump seized the news to say Wednesday evening that the event will involve “air shows,” but a senior military official told WaPo that "there would be no air shows, and that squadrons would perform flyovers. They will avoid flying over areas where people can congregate, the senior official said." More here.
Speaking of congregating Americans: A strong majority of Americans want safety first, and to reopen the country later. On Wednesday we learned 88% of Americans and 78% of Republicans think current restrictions to prevent the coronavirus spread are "about right" or "don't go far enough," according to a new poll from AP published Wednesday.
Last week it was Pew delivering us that message about voter sentiment. Then Reuters/Ipsos on Tuesday. Now we have similar supporting data from AP-NORC.
Taken together, the AP results show that "The majority of Americans — 61% — feel the steps taken by government officials to prevent infections of COVID-19 in their area are about right." The numbers rise to the 88% and 78% mentioned above when we add in the folks who feel the current measures aren’t enough. More here.
The bigger concern, at least to your D Brief-er, remains algorithm-boosted amplification of fringe opinions and the seemingly irresistible pull of the sensational for the media — the same sort of stuff we learned over time that YouTube was darkly brilliant at, as illustrated here, here and here.
From Defense One
The Pentagon Will Use AI to Predict Panic Buying, COVID-19 Hotspots // Patrick Tucker: The prototype can predict trends in supply and demand and infection down to the zip code.
Will the US Navy Sink Iranian Fast Boats in the Gulf? Maybe, Maybe Not // Marcus Weisgerber: It may be time to formalize how orders are passed from the White House to the military.
How South Korea Used Technology to Flatten the Coronavirus Curve // Michael Ahn, The Conversation: A sense of normalcy is beginning to return to the country, thanks to extensive testing and a national system for tracking infected people.
US Army to Study How Humans Team With AI // Aaron Boyd, Nextgov: A new contract will focus on the teaming aspect of artificial intelligence in warfare by analyzing how humans and machines think when working together.
Welcome to this Thursday edition of The D Brief from Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Send us tips from your community right here. And if you’re not already subscribed to The D Brief, you can do that here. On this day in 2005, YouTube published its first video, entitled “Me at the zoo.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci: "We will have coronavirus in the fall. I am convinced of that,” he said at the White House’s Wednesday presser on the U.S. response to the coronavirus. “What happens with that will depend on how we’re able to contain it when it occurs,” Fauci added.
By the way: The doctor who led the federal agency involved in developing a coronavirus vaccine says he was removed from his post after he wanted rigorous vetting of that malaria drug as a coronavirus treatment embraced by Trump.
His name is Dr. Rick Bright, and he was director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA. He lawyered up on Wednesday and is reportedly becoming a whistleblower. Here’s his full statement, released to the press after the New York Times reported the story here.
This week in American ingenuity: a Boston hospital teamed up with manufacturers with 3D-printers to produce new designs and new supplies of swabs for covid-19 testing. WaPo has that story, here.
This week in COVID-19 information wars: Chinese agents helped spread fake messages to millions of Americans saying President Trump was locking down the U.S. because of the coronavirus, the NYTs reported Wednesday.
And don’t miss the “never-before-told story” of how social distancing became U.S. policy — with surprising roots that extend back 15 years.
- In a hurry? Read the findings in one Twitter thread by the NYT's Eric Lipton, here.
Is domestic abuse in the U.S. declining amid the pandemic? Or are victims more afraid to call the authorities since they are less able to escape? Researchers at the criminal justice nonprofit the Marshall Project took a look at the numbers to deliver some takeaways from Chicago; Austin, Texas; and Chandler, Ariz., here.
Spotted Wednesday: Acts of kindness and generosity in Germany. That via Joyce Karam of The National, here.
Anthony Tata will probably be named the Pentagon's next policy chief. Bloomberg and Politico are reporting this morning that Tata, a retired Army brigadier general turned Fox talker, will be nominated as defense undersecretary for policy. “If confirmed by the Senate, Tata would replace John Rood, who was forced out in February as part of President Donald Trump’s loyalty purge after two years in the job,” Politico writes.
A West Point grad who became a Ranger and deputy commander of the 10th Mountain Division, Tata has a master’s degree in international relations and served as a fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Tata retired in 2008, a year after Army investigators concluded that he had had at least two adulterous affairs and as they were looking into a false document he provided to courts. In retirement, Tata became a superintendent of schools in South Carolina’s Wake County and was fired by the county school board after 20 months on the job.
After multiple failures, Iran has finally launched a satellite into orbit. Watch launch video from Iran (ht @inbarspace). U.S. Space Command confirms it. And here are the specs for the orbit.
What’s the big deal? The National Interest explains, here.
Get to better know the contours of space warfare, such as it is, in our recent podcast on the subject from March, here.
Today on Capitol Hill: “The House floor schedule for Thursday includes the following instruction: “Lawmakers will vote in groups in 10-minute windows and are being asked to stay in their offices except during their speaking time. The House will also recess between votes so the chamber can be cleaned,” Politico’s Connor O’Brien reported Wednesday evening on Twitter.
And finally today, because it’s easy to miss this sort of thing in this COVID-19-centric news cycle: The GOP-led Senate intelligence committee reaffirmed the U.S. intelligence community’s January 2017 report on Russian interference specifically to help Trump in the previous election. Find the report itself, here. The Washington Post’s Joe Marks extrapolates the findings, here.