Joe Biden sends US military to overwhelmed states to help with Omicron coronavirus surge

The president also promised free high-quality masks and 500 million more free Covid-19 tests to tackle the fast-spreading variant

Military health workers will be sent to packed emergency rooms to free up hospital staff for non-coronavirus cases

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US President Joe Biden (left) speaks on his administration’s Covid-19 surge response as members of the military from Arizona, New York and Michigan listen on a screen in Washington on Thursday. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 3:35am, 14 Jan 2022

President Joe Biden on Thursday said he will deploy more military health workers to six US states beginning next week, and give Americans free masks and more free tests to tackle the fast-spreading Omicron variant around the country.

The dispatch of 1,000 military health personnel is “part of a major deployment of our nation’s armed forces to help hospitals across the country manage this surge of the Omicron virus”, Biden said.

“I know we’re all frustrated as we enter this new year,” Biden said, while reiterating his message that Covid-19 continues to be a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

US Covid-19 hospitalisations reached a record high this week after steadily increasing since late December, according to a Reuters tally, while Omicron overtook Delta as the dominant variant of the coronavirus.

Hospital staff reposition a Covid-19 patient at Providence St. Mary Medical Centre in California on January 6. Photo: TNS

The US will send the health workers, in teams of seven to 25 military doctors, nurses and other personnel, to Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio and Rhode Island to support at-capacity emergency rooms and free up overwhelmed hospital staff for non-Covid-19 cases, the White House said earlier on Thursday.