Posted on 03/14/2020 5:16:11 AM PDT by Little Pig
Immediate Release Statement by the Department of Defense on Domestic Travel Restrictions March 13, 2020
Today, the Deputy Secretary of Defense David L. Norquist approved new travel restrictions for service members, DoD civilians, and their families assigned to DoD installations, facilities and surrounding areas within the United States and its territories. This restriction will halt all domestic travel, including Permanent Change of Station, and Temporary Duty. This restriction will also pause civilian hiring at DoD installations and components for persons who do not reside within the hiring entity's local commuting area.
Additionally, service members will be authorized local leave only, following Service guidelines. This new guidance is effective March 16 and continues through May 11.
Similar to other travel guidance regarding COVID-19, travel exceptions may be granted for compelling cases where the travel is mission-essential, for humanitarian reasons, or warranted due to extreme hardship. Approval authority for these exceptions belongs to the Combatant Commander, the Service Secretaries, the Chief Management Officer, or the Director of the Joint Staff, but may be delegated.
The Department will continue to issue additional guidance with regard to the COVID-19 as conditions warrant. Our goal is to remain ahead of the virus spread so our military force remains effective and ready.
For more information on the CDC travel restrictions, visit https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices/.
We encourage all DOD personnel to visit https://www.defense.gov/Explore/Spotlight/Coronavirus/for information on staying healthy during the outbreak. The Department will issue follow-on guidance on this directive prior to implementation.
The armed forces can press their medics and personnel into service to save lives if necessary.
Yes. They need to keep our troops as healthy as possible and ready for action.
This news seems rather momentous . . .
It is
Why is this momentous....seems like it’s the same as telling people to work from home to prevent the spread
While there must certainly be some there who aren’t on our side, I don’t see the Pentagon as a building full of people with their hair on fire.
Hopefully this will blow over without too many casualties, but when serious people are seriously concerned, it should give any rational person pause.
Even as an older guy, I don’t intend to panic, but my personal defcon level has gone up a notch in the interim.
Just a big left wing conspiracy by the msm, dems and 50+ countries and now the DOD. /s
Either this is being blown way out of proportion or they’re not telling us peons something about this virus. Poland closed it’s borders and they’re sure not anti-Trump. All very strange.
It’s pouring rain here right now. Might be a good time to hit walmart. LOL
We were apparently typing simultaneously, and your take on it may well be all this amounts to.
In the meantime, #7 above is my personal outlook on the situation.
It’s already in Ft. Hood with 35,000 troops. Some guy came back from Barcelona with it.
Two absolute must-read articles are up on ZeroHedge right now. Here is one.
Covid-19: European Leaders Finally Acknowledge Scale Of Crisis
Sat, 03/14/2020
The disease is spreading fast: more than 28,000 coronavirus cases (93% of all cases) in Europe were confirmed during just the first twelve days of March. The number of new cases has been doubling, on average, every 72 hours.
[DOUBLING EVERY 72 HOURS!!!!]
“The threat is very significant... There are many epidemiologists who talk about the potential of the virus in terms of attack rates globally that could be between 50% and 70% of the global population.
“It is important to recognize that the virus is here and that it has tremendous potential to be disruptive, to cause high rates of illness and even high rates of death....
“I don’t think we are dealing with the flu here... this is a virus that is now circulating in a population that has absolutely no immunity to it.... You might have an attack rate that is three times higher than seasonal flu with a mortality rate that is ten times higher.
“The most concerning thing about this virus is the combination of infectiousness and the ability to cause severe disease or death. We have not since 1918 — since the Spanish flu — seen a virus that combined those two qualities in the same way. We have seen very lethal viruses — Ebola’s mortality rate in some cases is greater than 80% — but they don’t have the infectiousness that this virus has. They don’t have the potential to explode and spread globally....
“I think that what we are seeing is a virus that is many, many times more lethal than the flu, and a population that is completely vulnerable to it, and we are seeing its ability to explode. It has increased in some countries over the last two weeks by one thousand-fold and many countries are seeing ten-fold or one hundred-fold increases in cases. There is nothing to stop that expansion from continuing unless those societies move aggressively, engage their publics, implement multiple public health interventions, including introducing social distancing....
“We need to modify our behavior. We need to start practicing that now. We have to modify our behavior in ways that reduces the risk of transmitting the virus.... One challenge that we face is that people who are young and are generally healthy won’t perceive personal risk and they will govern their behavior based on what they perceive their personal risk to be. I think we need to start thinking in terms of the social risk. If I have a cold and I go to work and shake hands with my older colleague who has a chronic medical condition, I could be responsible for that colleague’s death. We all need to think about our responsibility to each other as we govern our behavior. We can’t view the epidemic in terms of our personal risk, we need to act collectively in a cooperative manner....
“I don’t think it’s a crazy analogy to compare this to World War 2... I think this is an appropriate analogy and the mindset that people need to get into....
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/covid-19-european-leaders-finally-acknowledge-scale-crisis
Here is another MUST read for today.
It’s reprinted at Zero Hedge (instead of Medium) so it’s much easier to access. All the graphs will enlarge for easy study if you click on them.
“Covid-19 Is An Exponential Threat” - Why Global Politicians & Business Leaders Must Act Now
When you’re done reading the article, this is what you’ll take away:
The coronavirus is coming to you.
It’s coming at an exponential speed: gradually, and then suddenly.
It’s a matter of days. Maybe a week or two.
When it does, your healthcare system will be overwhelmed.
Your fellow citizens will be treated in the hallways.
Exhausted healthcare workers will break down. Some will die.
They will have to decide which patient gets the oxygen and which one dies.
The only way to prevent this is social distancing today. Not tomorrow. Today.
That means keeping as many people home as possible, starting now.
As a politician, community leader or business leader, you have the power and the responsibility to prevent this.
You might have fears today: What if I overreact? Will people laugh at me? Will they be angry at me? Will I look stupid? Won’t it be better to wait for others to take steps first? Will I hurt the economy too much?
But in 2–4 weeks, when the entire world is in lockdown, when the few precious days of social distancing you will have enabled will have saved lives, people won’t criticize you anymore: They will thank you for making the right decision.
We Americans been regularly inoculating ourselves with the flu viruses for the past couple of decades.
The Wuhan virus will probably be in the next shot (starting in September) or sooner.
Spanish Flu ripped through the U.S. military, killing many more than combat in Europe.
That’s very interesting.
Thanks for finding it.
L
Been joining Travis in trying to tell people this is not”just the flu.”
The flu doesn’t overwhelm an area of 22 million people in just over a month to the point of lockdown.
May God be with us all.
After this is over, this maybe a “all hands on deck” situation to defend the country.
That graph in #15 is interesting in that while the Philly death rate dropped to essentially zero soon after their spike, it took St. Louis another ~90 days to bottom out even though they never had the big spike.
Given that one would reasonably assume a similar spread in population age and other demographics, it does seem to argue well for the instituted precautions minimizing, if not eliminating, the impact.
"Then look at Denver, which enacted measures and then loosened them. They had a double peak, with the 2nd one higher than the first."
Yep. Lost my job of 19 years in late February due to restructuring. I have two applications in with DOD. Guess those are on hold for now :-(
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