January 29, 2020
March Air Reserve Base and the Department of Defense (DoD) stand ready to provide housing support to Health and Human Services (HHS) as they work to handle the arrival of more than 200 Department of State employees, dependents and US citizens evacuated from Wuhan, China. DoD has assessed this support will not negatively impact readiness or critical operations, and we stand ready for their arrival. HHS is responsible for all care of the evacuees, and DoD personnel will not be directly in contact with the evacuees and evacuees will not have access to any other base location other than their assigned housing.
Should routine monitoring of the evacuees identify ill individuals, HHS has procedures in place to transport them to a local civilian hospital.
DoD will work closely with our interagency partners and monitor the situation closely. The Department’s primary responsibility at this time is the safety of our force, our families, and our base communities.