Air Force Reservists deploy to NYC to fight COVID-19 outbreak

April 6 (UPI) -- Over 120 medical personnel have been deployed to New Jersey to help fight the coronavirus outbreak on 48 hours' notice, the U.S. Air Force Reserve said on Monday.

Over 40 doctors, 70 nurses and 13 respiratory technicians left their home stations for Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., outside New York City.

After processing at the U.S. Northern Command's Joint Forces Land Component Command, they headed to the Javits Center, where a coalition of military and civilian builders is constructing an emergency hospital which house 4,000 beds by Tuesday.

The Reserves' Force Generation Center, in use since 2010, is responsible for the quick deployment, the Air Force said in a statement on Monday. It serves as a deployment cell, a 24/7 air operations center and a crisis action team manager for the Air Force Reserve.

"The stand-up of the FGC and the capabilities it brought the command has made this COVID-19 mobilization a success this weekend," Lt. Gen. Richard Scobee, AFRC commander and Chief of the Air Force Reserve said in a statement. "The FGC team and our wing commanders got this mobilization moving in the right direction within 48 hours to take care of Americans in the fight against COVID-19."

The screening process was careful to include only medical personnel who could be called away from their civilian careers.

"We did not want to pull a doc or nurse out of their community clinical practice or hospital if already ensconced in coronavirus operations," said Col. Teresa Bisnett, the Air Force Reserve's surgeon general.

Reservists traveled from as far away as Utah, where the Reserve 419th Fighter Wing at Hill AFB sent registered nurses and nurse practitioners. All were called up under an executive order by President Donald Trump on March 27.