NEW YORK — Today is Day 54 on the job for Joint Task Force Civil Support, which has taken the lead of Joint task Force New York/New Jersey.
The team was directed by U.S. Northern Command to deploy on March 24 to New York in support of FEMA 's "whole-of-nation " COVID-19 response.
The mission: to help the overburdened New York and New Jersey hospital systems.
They provided doctors, nurses and corpsmen to treat COVID-19 patients at the since-closed Javits New York Medical Station, the New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center, Edison, and the Atlantic City Convention Center.
In all, they treated 1,095 patients at the Javits Center alone.
Major General Bill Hall says his group's work has been "phenomenal," adding, "Their morale is high. They understand what they've done here for New York and New Jersey and impact."
Sixty percent of the 1,200-member unit comes from Army, Navy and Air Force reserve components, from all 50 states and four territories.
Twenty-eight members come from Hampton Roads.
They're still providing care in nine New York City hospitals and three New Jersey hospitals.
But, as the curve begins to flatten, the Task Force's commanding general sees light at the end of the tunnel and says the group could be sent home within weeks.
"Are they ready to go home?" he asked. "Sure, they're ready, but we're closing out the mission in a responsible way. We don't want to keep them here a second longer that they're needed, because they've got civilian jobs to go back to, and their civilian employers, I'm sure, want them back."
And they might be needed again.
Hall says, if there's a COVID-19 resurgence in the late summer or early Fall, the team is prepared to come back, either to the New York area, or wherever the country needs them.