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NATIONAL GUARD ON-THE-RECORD TELEPHONIC MEDIA ROUNDTABLE

JANUARY 29, 2021

TOPIC SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS

National Guard COVID 

Response Efforts

 Air Force Maj. Gen. Jerry L. Fenwick, Director, National 

Guard Bureau Office of the Joint Surgeon

 Army Maj. Gen. David S. Baldwin, Adjutant General, 

California National Guard

 Army Maj. Gen. Paul D. Rogers, Adjutant General, Michigan 

National Guard

 Army Maj. Gen. Bret D. Daugherty, Adjutant General, 

Washington National Guard

 Army LTC Paul Tumminello, Deputy Surgeon General, DC 

National Guard

Introduction:

The National Guard has been at the forefront of the COVID-19 pandemic response across the nation, 

providing support to federal, state and local authorities. In June, more than 47,000 Guard men and women 

were supporting COVID operations across the country, and currently nearly 23,000 remain on duty battling 

the pandemic today. Currently, governors in 30 states and territories are actively utilizing the National 

Guard to administer vaccines to the civilian population. A senior leader from the National Guard Bureau, 

and three general officers representing state senior leadership, will provide information on the missions 

their National Guard men and women are conducting in continued response to the pandemic in their 

respective states.

All bios were provided in the media release, and at the end of this media round table, if we have any open 

questions or anything, we will follow up with you, and provide the information as requested.

The on-the-record telephonic media roundtable was held Friday, January 29, from 1-145 p.m. (ET).

Dialogue:

[Name] [QUESTION/RESPONSE]

Ms. McFadden Please introduce yourself and then your outlet and please just limit it to 

that. Today, we have Air Force Major General Jerry Fenwick, who is the 
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director of the National Guard Bureau Office of the Joint Surgeon General. 

We also have Army Major General David Baldwin, the adjutant general 

of California National Guard. We have Army Major General Paul Rogers, 

adjutant general of the Michigan National Guard. And we also have Army 

Major General Bret Daugherty, adjutant general of the Washington 

National Guard. Each general will provide some brief on the record 

comments regarding their state's National Guard COVID missions. And 

then if you didn't receive their bios, we can we can forward that to you. 

And then following their comments, we will take your questions with that. 

Let's start with introducing Major General David Baldwin, Adjutant 

General California. 

Sir, would you like to begin? General Baldwin, we can't hear you.

MG Baldwin - CA How about now? 

Ms. McFadden Thank you, sir, we can hear you now. Great, thank you. 

MG Baldwin - CA Good morning, everybody. Good afternoon. Depending on where you are. 

I'm Dave Baldwin. The Adjutant General of California as introduced. 

Thanks very much to all the reporters for taking an interest in what the 

guard is doing across the nation, because this has been an unprecedented 

year for us. Starting last March when we all became involved in response 

to Covered California COVID infection rates are trending down, which is 

some good news. But we still are having quite a few excess deaths, about 

five hundred excess deaths across the state every single day. This week, 

though, that is down from the trend from last week. Our governor lifted 

our statewide stay at home order that we still have a lot of restrictions in 

place to prevent the spread of the disease. The state has begun. Mass 

vaccinations is good, but we're not out of the woods yet. And because of 

that, we anticipate many, many more months of taskings for the California 

National Guard here in the state to assist local authorities and medical 

people with our COVID response. We currently have one thousand four 

hundred and eighty four (1,484) soldiers and airmen on duty across the 

state doing a broad range of mission sets that include COVID testing sites. 

We have regional medical strike teams that are working in emergency 

rooms to help relieve hospitals. That staff are under pressure from COVID 

cases are being infected with COVID themselves. We're in 16 food banks 

across the state. We've already prepared over one hundred twenty eight 

(128) million meals. We have airmen working in coroner's offices in two 

counties that have been assisting with the excess deaths. Our airmen have 

processed one thousand one hundred and eighty three decedents on that 

mission. We're working in vaccination sites. We have 15 teams and we're 
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ramping up to assist in four very large scale vaccination points of 

distribution in three counties. So four sites in three counties. So we can 

really start pumping out the vaccinations. Because of that, we're 

anticipating an increase of about another thousand soldiers and airmen on 

duty over the next couple of weeks. So it'll take us up to two thousand five 

hundred (2,500) people coming soon. I know some of you have some 

interest in the DC mission. California National Guard sent two hundred 

and eighty six (286) soldiers and airmen to participate in the security for 

the inauguration. We provided security people, transportation support, 

explosive ordinance disposal chaplain teams, which are religious support 

teams, some weapons of mass destruction experts from our civil support 

teams. And we, of course, provided our own airlift to do that. We currently 

have two hundred and sixty soldiers remaining in the greater DC area. 

They're providing security at congressional buildings on Capitol Hill and 

we expect them to be there for several more weeks. And again, thank you 

for your interest and I look forward to your questions. 

Ms. McFadden Thank you, sir. Major General Rogers, would you like to make your 

comments? 

MG Rogers - MI Excellent. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and 

share a Michigan story and contribution to the COVID response this year. 

We've been in support of our Health and Human Services Department 

since March of last year. Over the course of that period of time, we've 

administered over two hundred and fifteen thousand COVID tests. We 

also administered over forty thousand vaccinations since the 16th of 

December, and we've distributed twenty seven million pounds of food. 

And that's all in addition to our normal operational requirements to support 

combat operations around the world and in security operations here within 

the United States. It's been a very busy year, but it's been a very satisfying 

and gratifying year. Also, we are continuing to support our Department of 

Health and Human Services, particularly with the max mass vaccination 

clinics. We've been on that mission since 16 December. We have a total 

of one hundred and seventeen teams and five hundred and sixty eight 

personnel on orders supporting the COVID response. Those one hundred 

and seventeen teams are distributed throughout the state. We are in small 

clinics with local health departments. We're also in major metro. 

Providers, hospital systems helping to administer vaccine to their staff, 

and then we are conducting clinics at the local level, mass vaccination 

clinics with up to two thousand vaccinations per day. Again, I offer that 

we've already vaccinated just the Michigan National Guard is vaccinated 

over forty thousand citizens of Michigan as part of that entire enterprise. 
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We're also a key enabler for vaccination within our Department of 

Corrections. And we've already last week started to vaccinate the sixty five 

and older inmate population and has more vaccine flows in. We will 

continue to administer vaccines to the thirty nine thousand inmates that 

are in our Department of Corrections. We are also supporting local first 

responders and we're vaccinating the Michigan State Police. We're also 

providing vaccination teams to some of the federal agencies that have 

employee programs for vaccinating their federal employees and 

Department of Defense employees. So we're well integrated into the state 

wide response. Again, it's a great team effort. We are a supporting entity 

to them and we're always focused on being ready when they call and then 

being there at the point of need to make sure we are providing that resource 

in a very professional way. That's truly what the National Guard brings to 

the table as a professional value based workforce, people who are 

committed to the mission first and who are willing to do whatever they 

have to be successful and ensure our partners are successful and we are 

scalable and salable and we can respond very quickly overnight. In fact, if 

a clinic finds that they're short of personnel, we surge people there to make 

sure that they are successful in administering the vaccine on that given 

day. So I'm free and available to answer any questions that you may have. 

And thank you for including me in this opportunity. 

Ms. McFadden Thank you, sir. Now, Major General Daugherty from Washington. 

MG Daugherty - WA Great, thanks. Well, thanks for taking the time to give me an opportunity 

to tell you what we've been up to out here in the state of Washington. So 

the Washington National Guard has had between eight hundred and a 

thousand soldiers and airmen conducting COVID response missions for 

almost a year. Now, as you recall, state of Washington was one of the very 

first COVID case was discovered in and the very first outbreak. And that 

already seems like a very long time ago. We've been very busy. So we 

have run food banks and continue to do so. We've provided over 70 million 

pounds of food to our communities. We have built test kits. We had a real 

hard time getting a hold of the testing materials initially. So the guard 

stepped up. And we've built and provided over half a million test kits to 

get that testing done. We've done a lot of contact tracing and we've even 

assisted our state's employment security division in getting unemployment 

benefits to our citizens. There was a huge backlog. State was completely 

overwhelmed and kind of echoing what my fellow tags have said when 

they're when there's a difficult task, even though it's something that you 

don't necessarily think the guard would step up to. Do we have a very 

capable, flexible force that can do just about anything? And so that's what 
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we've been doing this week. We have one hundred and fifty soldiers and 

airmen and we've begun our support to the Washington State Department 

of Health efforts to vaccinate all Washingtonians against COVID-19. So 

under the Department of Health direction, Guard personnel are currently 

located at four mass vaccination sites across our state, and each side 

includes a twenty nine Guardsman team, which consist of eight medics 

administering shots at each site and twenty one soldiers and airmen. 

They're assisting with logistics and administrative duties running the site. 

We also have a team that is supporting the mass vaccination effort as a 

mobile team traveling to nursing homes and independent living centers to 

vaccinate the elderly population that is unable to physically come to a mass 

vaccination site. Our teams are capable of administering about a thousand 

shots per day per team, and so far we've administered nine thousand shots 

over the past four days. We've just been at it now for this is our fifth day. 

We're capable of growing from five teams to 10 or even as much as 15, 

really kind of dependent on the supply of vaccine that comes into our state. 

Our state's goal right now for all sites combined, both civilian and military. 

National Guard is forty five thousand shots per day. And we're providing, 

as I said right now, about nine thousand. We'll probably be up to ten 

thousand by the first part of next week. Our state is administered about six 

hundred thousand vaccinations so far. Our population here is around seven 

and a half million people. So we've got a ways to go. But as I mentioned 

before, we're truly only limited, I think, by the amount of vaccine that is 

coming into our state. I know that that's a national effort, but we are ready 

to receive. So in kind of some summary here, I think the Washington 

National Guard, my folks that are out there in the field are really excited 

to play a major role in what we hope is the final push to defeat this deadly 

disease. And I've been describing it as we've been running a mile race and 

we're now in the gun lab where in the last lap and we're digging deep, 

we're pushing hard and we're going to see this through. So I'll stand by for 

your questions. And thanks for being here with us today. 

Ms. McFadden Thank you, sir. And Major General Fenwick, are you here? Nothing. OK, 

so hopefully he'll join us soon. He's from the National Guard Bureau, 

office of the joint surgeon. So let's go ahead and let's start with NBC 

News. Mosh, are you here Mosheh? 

MG Fenwick - NGB SG Good afternoon everyone, I'm Major General Fund like the National 

Guard Bureau Joint Surgeon. First off, I'd like to express my gratitude to 

all of the Guardsmen serving in these incredibly challenging times. I'd like 

to thank the families and the employers, the governors and my fellow 

adjutant generals out there who just spoke for their support on our guard 
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operations. You know, we should realize that not only is the guard 

supporting the COVID-19 pandemic, but during these times we've 

responded to over 30 hurricanes, a greater than seven wildfires, a 

presidential inauguration and some civil disturbance operations. National 

Guard, we continue to demonstrate that we'll go wherever we're needed 

and whenever we're needed. Our medical guardsmen currently are serving 

in support of COVID-19 in several mission sets to include civilian 

vaccination, administration testing and screening operations, patient 

transport, medical personnel, augmentation and behavioral health support. 

Right now, the current number of troops we have supporting our National 

Guard COVID-19 operations is about twenty two thousand nine hundred 

and over two hundred and sixty sites nationwide, and an additional forty 

four thousand are serving in other domestic operations. Currently right 

now, there are currently guardsmen supporting COVID vaccinations to 

civilian operations in thirty eight states, giving over fifty one thousand 

shots a day and providing mobile vaccination teams for access to rural 

areas, remote sites as well as the underserved. We've administered over 

thirty seven thousand five hundred and eighty vaccines to Guardsmen. As 

of today. We follow the DOD personnel schema and is in line with the 

CDC recommendations and we're dedicated to this COVID-19 response. I 

would like to say that all of our guardsmen, we're committed to our 

country, their states and their communities. I would like to say that we 

have to realize that despite all of these things that I just mentioned these 

days, the vast majority of these folks have civilian occupations that could 

not be more proud to be a guardsman. And I'm not more proud. I could not 

be more proud of all of our Guardsmen. And I look forward to your 

questions. 

Ms. McFadden [ OK, thank you, sir. All right, let's go ahead and we'll start with Barbara 

Starr, CNN. How about Ellie Koffman from CNN? Nothing heard. OK, 

Tara Copp from McClatchy.

Tara Copp This is Tara with McClatchy. Thank you for doing this. I have a question 

for the first for the California Guard. Just how many members of the 

California National Guard are there? So when you're increasing the 

numbers that will be deployed in the next couple of weeks, up to more 

than 2000, how big a percent of that is that of your force? And then more 

general for everyone and including the surgeon general? Have you seen 

this very, very rapid pace, an intense time of demand on the guard, 

weighing on members, either medically or mentally? Are you getting more 

mental health service requests? Are you seeing more potential suicide 

ideations? Thank you for your responses. 
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Ms. McFadden General Baldwin. 

MG Baldwin - CA We have about eighteen thousand Army and Air National Guardsmen, 

plus another thirteen hundred members of our State Guard, which is our 

state militia. So when we bump up to twenty five hundred, that's a little 

over 10 percent of our force. So it does it does put some measure of strain 

on us, especially as we try to preserve a significant amount of troops, 

availability for unforeseen contingencies if we have a major earthquake or 

a tsunami. And of course, this is on top of our steady state of deployments 

for other federal requirements that are include our overseas mission, which 

for California right now, at any given time, we have about a thousand 

people deployed overseas. So it is it is it is quite a lot that we're asking of 

our part time Guard members, their families and our employers in these 

tough times. But we're managing to work through it pretty well. 

Ms. McFadden General Fenwick, do you have anything to add on a national level 

regarding the stress levels? 

MG Fenwick - NGB SG On the national level, we have a warrior resilience and fitness office that 

is actually assigned to the headquarters of the National Guard bureau, and 

they've provided incredible support throughout the entire COVID 

response since its beginning last March. We've also had very good support 

from our chaplain corps who have provided information as well as 

counseling to the soldiers and airmen out there that are having issues. It 

should be realized as well, as I mentioned before, that a lot of these folks 

have civilian occupations and we do the best we can to track their 

behavioral health needs. But with the chaplain support and our behavioral 

health experts in the wings, as well as in the medical detachments, I think 

we've got a pretty good job of getting after it over. 

Ms. McFadden Thank you, sir. 

Tara Copp If I can ask one follow up on California before we up needing the forces 

on hand for you, it's likely you'll have another very demanding wildfire 

season. You mentioned the earthquakes. At what point do you have to 

pause and maybe ask another state to help fill a request? Thanks. 

MG Baldwin - CA So it is something that we that we try to balance on a daily basis. Even of 

those eighteen thousand or so forces that we have at any given time, only 

about ten thousand are available for general purpose missions because the 

other people or people that generate combat power, their mechanics and 
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pilots and people that work at our installations for a state of 40 million 

people, it's a big problem in California. If you were to take the National 

Guard of the United States, which is a total of four hundred fifty thousand 

people, and spread it equally across the nation, per capita, California 

would have a guard force of sixty thousand. We'd have forty thousand in 

the Army Guard and six and twenty thousand in the Air Guard. We don't 

have that. So we have to manage our mission sets very carefully. And we 

keep in close contact with the Western states that in the event that we have 

contingencies that over requirements that overwhelm our capability, we'll 

bring in forces from other states. 

Ms. McFadden OK, moving on, we're going to go to the Wall Street Journal, Alexa Corse, 

Alexa. 

Alexa Corse Hey, thanks for doing this. I was wondering if one of you have the latest 

numbers on how many of the Guard members were sent to Washington 

for the inauguration have tested positive for COVID? 

Ms. McFadden Thank you. Let's see we have Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tumminello, who 

is the deputy surgeon general for the D.C. National Guard. We'll give you 

his name and information post event. But he wasn't originally available, 

but now he is Lieutenant Colonel Tumminello. Could you please just 

provide a little bit oversight on that? 

LTC Tumminello Yes, I can. Thank you very much. And thank you, everyone, for being 

here. So given that this is a very dynamic mission and we're running folks 

in and out. All the time where we're at any given time, there's people either 

moving in, there's people moving out, we've run up to a you know, it has 

been openly on the press, twenty five thousand or so folks on the ground. 

And because of this constant ebb and flow of folks and people, if they 

become COVID positive or they are exposed, they are moved into a 

restricted or isolation in in their hotels where they are staying. And so that 

that number is a constant number to kind of chase. And it's about two 

percent at any given time, over. 

Ms. McFadden General Fenwick, could you add a little bit more to that? 

MG Fenwick - NGB SG Yeah, I think that, you know, we have to look at as LTC Tumminello said, 

we have to look at this in a in a dynamic sense. And so our positivity rates, 

if we look at it from the 5th of January, which we consider the beginning 

to the end, are to today, we're looking at positivity rates of about one to 

three percent. And so over time, if we snapshot it, it comes out to about 
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two percent. I think that should be looked at clearly in the lens of the 

national percentage rate of nine point three percent. So I think we've done 

very well with that for self-protection as well as our guidance for the 

soldiers and airmen here. Over. 

Ms. McFadden Moving on, we have Washington Examiner Abraham Mahshie, Are you 

here? 

Abraham Mahshie Yes. OK, here. Thank you so much for doing this. A couple of quick 

questions I wanted to follow up on the COVID issue, I understand, the two 

percent is sort of the rate, but do you have a hard number of how many 

Guard troops are currently in quarantine or who have already come down 

like 200 or whatever that number might be? Also, Major General Baldwin. 

I walked the perimeter of the Capitol the other day and I spoke to a number 

of your Guard members who were wary about when they might go home. 

Are you communicating to them an end date to their mission, or are you 

giving them some sense of when they might be finished? And then Major 

General Fenwick, can you can you talk overall about how these Guard 

members might be contracting COVID and any sort of special preparations 

that you're giving them to keep them from contracting COVID. Thank you 

so much. 

Ms. McFadden General Fenwick, if you would start, please. 

MG Fenwick - NGB SG Sure, I think that, you know, as we started this mission said the nature of 

the missions that dictated that the most appropriate COVID mitigation 

strategy was that in line with the CDC guidance and that included 

screening before they left home station, as well as screening here, 

temperature checks, questionnaires. And of course, any member who 

arrived in D.C. or before they left with any risk factors from screening or 

became symptomatic was immediately sent to a medical treatment facility 

for testing and if positive was quarantined. Contact tracing was also 

completed at that time and then they subsequently went into quarantine as 

well. I should say that, again, a number of positives and those in restriction 

of movement or ROM, from is fluid over time as soldiers depart and arrive 

in the area due to the dynamic nature of the mission. And I don't know if 

LTC Tumminello has any follow up on that or. 

Ms. McFadden Lieutenant Colonel, would you like to add just a little bit to that? 

LTC Tumminello I don't think so, the only other thing I guess I would like to add is that we 

are taking very good care of our soldiers in that do have to go through their 
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restriction of movement. What we call ROM, it's known as isolation or 

quarantine. Those soldiers are there's a white cell or a buddy care at every 

hotel at where those soldiers are staying and they're know they're visited 

at least three times a day, making sure they have all the food and care that 

they need. And if there's anybody that has any increase in their symptoms 

or are feeling not, well, they would be moved to a hospital. But that has 

not had to happen. And I think that's all. Thank you, over. 

Ms. McFadden General Baldwin. Do you have anything to add? I think there was a little 

bit of a California question. 

MG Baldwin - CA So, we we've told the soldiers from that task force that to expect to be on 

mission no later than the 14th of March. And we are also working with 

individuals that have some hardships because of civilian employment. For 

example, there's a captain that's accepted a job in Europe that we're going 

to work to replace him. So the ones that are hardships where we're dealing 

with on an individual basis, but in the meantime, their orders go through 

the 14th of March. 

Abraham Mahshie Thank you for that. Can I have a follow up, please? So I'm sorry to press 

on this, but you must have received an actual number at a certain time. So 

today at five hundred there were X number of Guard members in 

quarantine and isolation who had contracted the virus. Do you have a 

number and a time stamp? Thank you, 

Ms. McFadden General Fenwick. 

MG Fenwick - NGB SG Well, right now, I'm not at liberty to disclose the actual number from one 

time frame to another time frame. Our office has been tracking the actual 

percentage rates over a period of time due to the dynamic nature of the 

mission over. 

Ms. McFadden OK, let's moving on and we're going to go to Air Force magazine, Jennifer 

Leigh. 

Jennifer Lee Hello, thank you all so much for taking the time today. My question is for 

Major General Fenwick. I was hoping that you could tell me whether the 

total number of vaccinated Guard personnel you provided reflects those 

who received two doses or if it includes those who have received just at 

least one. And then I was wondering if you could comment on how the 

bureau will ensure that guard personnel receive their second doses on time 

out of state mobilizations and deployments considered. Thank you. 
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MG Fenwick - NGB SG Thanks for the question. Yes, we've received about thirty seven thousand 

five hundred doses total with about 4000 guardsmen receiving their 

second dose in terms of deployment, as if you're speaking of the 

Washington, D.C. deployment, our office is prioritizing our vaccines now 

to make absolutely sure that any soldier or airman that received a first dose 

at home will receive their second dose on deployment. We've also initiated 

our prioritization to ensure that all the guardsmen here can receive their 

first dose if they so desire to recover. 

Jennifer Lee Yes. And does that prioritization also apply to overseas deployments? 

MG Fenwick - NGB SG Yes, it does. Thank you. 

Ms McFadden General Daugherty, would you please just a little bit more from a state 

perspective on how that is viewed and how you are doing that for your 

National Guardsmen and then as they’re going overseas? 

MG Daugherty - WA Sure. Well, yeah, we are we are vaccinating our force here, and again, it's 

all really kind of dependent upon the vaccine flow that's coming in. But 

the way the way it's flown into our state right now, we're feeling pretty 

confident that probably by June we're going to have the vast majority of 

our force vaccinated. I don't have specific numbers right off the top of my 

head for you this morning, but the vaccine is flown in. We are getting our 

Air Force vaccinated. And our hope is, of course, that we can certainly 

vaccinate all of the folks that we have headed downrange there at the top 

of our priority list. And we do have a big year again for overseas 

deployment. We've got about one thousand five hundred members of our 

eight thousand person force that are headed downrange. So it's definitely 

something that we're paying attention to. And I know everybody's 

concerned about the spread of COVID and especially with what happened 

in D.C. People are looking for a concrete number. We are tracking that 

among our soldiers and airmen that went to the DC event. We had six that 

have tested positive out of about four hundred that we sent. And I have to 

tell you, that's not unusually high for operating in a covert environment. 

We had a lot of civil unrest missions this summer and we had a kind of an 

equal number of folks that tested positive after that. So it's just 

unfortunately, it's the environment that we're working in now. And for the 

guard to be out doing what we have to do in a covert environment, it's 

inevitable that some of our folks are going to test positive. But we get right 

on it. We isolate and put them into quarantine. And so we're doing our 

very best to keep everybody healthy. Back to you. 
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Ms. McFadden Appreciate that, sir. Going on to Fox News, Lucas Tomlinson, are you 

here? Lucas. Nothing heard Lara Seligman from Politico. 

Lara Seligman Hello. I just wanted to ask you to follow up on the question about the D.C., 

Tell me about the snapshot in time. My understanding is that over the 

weekend, the soldiers and tested American rates were between 10 and 15 

percent. 

Ms. McFadden Apologize. Why are you breaking up? Could you please? 

Lara Seligman Sorry, I'm on my computer. Can you. Can you hear me now? 

Ms. McFadden Yes, that's much better. 

Lara Seligman So over the weekend, my understanding is that groups of soldiers were 

being tested and they you were seeing positivity rates for some groups of 

10 to 15 percent for COVID positive in the D.C. National Guard mission. 

Can you speak to those numbers, please? 

Ms. McFadden General Fenwick, could you begin? 

Darla Torres Hey, Lara, this is Darla Torres. We can get back to you on that. I think that 

General Fenwick has kind of given an overarching percentage number. So 

let us take your question. If you can give us send me an email or our media 

desk, a little more insight about what groups you're talking about that be 

great and we can get back to you. Thanks. 

Lara Seligman Just with respect, I sent you that query by email and phone earlier this 

week, a week ago maybe so we can get an answer. 

Darla Torres Yeah, please send it again. I'll be happy to entertain it. Thanks. 

Ms. McFadden Thank you. OK, Idrees from Reuters. 

Idrees Ali Thanks for doing this. Two quick questions. So with the two to three 

percent positive rate based on the inauguration, what is the total number 

that you've seen positive out of the twenty five thousand? And secondly, 

more broadly for the generals from the different bureaus. Do you feel 

comfortable enough to say no to some of the requests that come from the 

governor's, given how stretched you may be? Or do you feel compelled to 

have to say yes, given that it just seems like the country needs more 
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National Guard troops now than ever before? 

Ms. McFadden Thank you. Let's start with General Rogers. If you could speak to how it 

is at the state level. 

MG Rogers - MI So I think when you asked about the whether or not we feel compelled. 

We have a very good dialog, it's a very collaborative from when a request 

comes in from the National Guard Bureau, it's a request and they're asking 

Michigan if we can support given all the other demands. And we take it 

very seriously. We look across our own situation. And to give you some 

context, we have eleven thousand members here in Michigan of the Army 

and Air National Guard. We have about a thousand deployed overseas. 

We have almost six hundred on the COVID mission. We have a thousand 

going to D.C. So we take all of that into account and we look at our training 

requirements and then our ability to respond. And I go to the governor's 

office and I provide a recommendation. We discuss it and then 

collaboratively we decide what we're able to support. So there's no I 

wouldn't say we're not forced we have full discretion to give that feedback 

to guard bureau. And I think you need to look at the National Guard as a 

nationwide network where we collaborate together in order to resource 

requirements. And if one state can't quite do it, another state will step up 

and fulfill that obligation. This summer, I had soldiers and airmen in 

California supporting General Baldwin for the fire response. We also sent 

soldiers to Wisconsin to support with the civil unrest that they were 

having. We supported the F-16 crashed out of Wisconsin. We supported 

with soldiers and airmen there, too. So it's really a collaborative enterprise 

where we work together to provide a solution and we figure out how to 

support the requesting agency so that they can be successful and we can 

be successful. 

Ms. McFadden Thank you, General Baldwin, would you like to talk a little bit more about 

what California is doing? 

MG Baldwin - CA Yeah, so I just echo what General Rogers says is we I get a briefing every 

single day down to the individual soldier and airmen of who's available, 

who is currently on a mission, who's in the pipeline for overseas 

deployment, who is in the pipeline for training, and who's not available 

either because they're medically non deployable or sick or exposed to 

COVID or as I mentioned before, they're on another critical Terpsichore 

function or another task force like our counterdrug task force. And I just 

want to say on COVID positivity. So for California, the two hundred and 

eighty six people that we sent to D.C., we had one person test positive for 
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COVID and that soldier is currently in quarantine. Back in D.C., we take 

very aggressive measures to protect our force, including daily medical 

screening. People wear masks. What we found here in California is our 

COVID positivity rate across all our troops that were deployed at the peak. 

We had over ten thousand soldiers and airmen deployed in June for civil 

unrest here in California. And we did not see any large scale. And I would 

describe large scale as more than one and a half to two percent positivity. 

We didn't see that coming out of our forces at all. And because we do some 

pretty good contact tracing to. So what we're finding is, is that people are 

catching it, not on duty. They're catching COVID when they get exposed 

off duty, with the exception of some of our firefighting hand crews 

managed to give each other COVID because they would let their guard 

down when they're riding around in 15 passenger vans. So, of course, our 

theory is, is that COVID is caused by 15 passenger vans. So we're trying 

to ban the use of those. But otherwise, we're doing a pretty good job of 

protecting our force from this deadly threat. 

Ms. McFadden Thank you, sir. Now, I know you guys are all very interested in what's 

happening in D.C., what I'm going to refer you to is yesterday, Mr. Kirby, 

at a press conference, he provided some information on numbers. So 

please look at that. Anything else with regard to specifics in D.C., just send 

us another email and or follow up after this press conference, and then 

we're going to do our best to try to get you the information you're looking 

for. But it has been shared multiple times. Two percent is and or below is 

what's happening here in the D.C. mission as it relates to the positive 

COVID numbers. So I'm going to ask for one more question and maybe 

two, if we have the time. But we're going to go to National Guard 

Magazines, Drew Brooks. Are you here, Drew? 

Drew I'm here, but no question at this time. 

Ms. McFadden Copy that. Thank you so much. Let's see, Tom Bowman from NPR. 

Nothing heard, I do see Sig, Sig is one of the few on camera, do you have 

a question from San Antonio Express? 

Sig Christenson Yes, I do. We have been trying to ascertain the total number of guardsmen 

who have gotten positive test results for COVID or sick in Texas. And 

somebody told me there was a number. I'm not very sure about it, but I'm 

asking about that. And I'm also wondering why it is that you cannot 

provide a hard figure on these on that number four for the guard 

nationwide. I read Laura's story yesterday and there seems to be quite a 

controversy about that. You have unhappy people on the Hill about it. 
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What's the problem? 

Ms. McFadden As it relates to the information that we have regarding the COVID mission 

and the numbers, you know, we normally don't talk about COVID cases. 

It does relate to operational security. So we are still in the middle of trying 

to figure out how to support the D.C. mission with the members that we 

have. And we have been identified, those who are positive and we are 

taking care of them, they will remain on orders until they are able to either 

report back to duty or to return home. As it relates Texas, we're going to 

get you back to the Texas National Guard and help you with the specific 

numbers to that. And Darla, you have a little bit more to add? 

Darla Torres Hey Sig, this is Darla. If you're looking for nationwide, that's we can help 

you with that. But let me give you a call after this. Thanks. 

Sig Christenson Sure thing. I've already sent a message to General Norris in Texas, so 

we'll see if they respond. 

Darla Torres OK. I'll give you a call right after this. Thank you. 

Ms. McFadden OK, last question. Military Times, Meghann Myers. 

Meghann Myers Great, thank you. I am basically just wondering, in response to FEMA's 

request to get DOD on board and get some troops out to help with 

vaccines, and I know it's early, but what sort of plans have you guys been 

able to grow together or what sort of directives are you getting from the 

Pentagon about what to prepare for? 

Ms. McFadden Thank you. Let's start with General Fenwick and then we'll go through 

the three Adjutants Generals, as they understand from their perspective. 

General Fenwick? 

MG Fenwick - NGB SG Yes, we've we have liaison officers at FEMA and HHS which have 

provided information on what FEMA's plans may be for active duty 

support of civilian vaccination centers. My goal has been to make sure that 

our guardsmen are supporting their communities first in rural, remote, as 

well as under underserved areas. FEMA is still very early in their planning 

cycle for this. We have not been notified of any need for National Guard 

as of yet. I will tell you that the vast majority of our National Guardsmen 

are currently involved in the fight as well. As you have to realize, too, that 

everyone that I put and I think this has probably been mentioned in other 

briefings, but every National Guard medical airman or soldier that I put 
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into a vaccination site, I am taking out of their civilian community to do 

perhaps the same thing in a different uniform. So I have to be very careful 

about that. But right now, we are awaiting any word as to whether or not 

we will be task or needed. But my goal as the Joint Surgeon of the National 

Guard is to make sure we're supporting our communities first. 

Ms. McFadden Over to General Rogers, if you would like to add your closing statements 

and how you're supporting this new mission. 

MG Rogers - MI Excellent. Thank you. First of all, with regards to FEMA, we're in FEMA 

Region five, but they have personnel in our state emergency operations 

center that work closely with the Michigan State Police who run that center 

and they coordinate any federal assistance through our state emergency 

operation center with our health and human services. So there is planning 

ongoing right now for potential federally supported mass vaccination 

clinics across the state. It's in the planning phase, but we're eager to take 

advantage of any support we can get if it means vaccinating people of 

Michigan and helping us transition back to an open economy and people 

getting beyond the COVID restrictions. So we're working closely with 

them on that planning. I will tell you, based on the one hundred and 

seventeen teams I have from the Michigan National Guard supporting 

vaccination clinics, we have the potential to do fourteen thousand 

vaccinations per day based on the limited supply of vaccine. We're 

operating at about half that capacity. So the real limiting factor is the 

availability of vaccine. And I think that's a common story across the 

country. So as we ramp up production and we get that distribution into the 

states, we have a lot of capability within Michigan to distribute and 

provide vaccinations to our population. That's really untapped right now. 

So although we'll never turn down outside, support of vaccination 

availability is the limiting factor. To get to my just a couple of closing 

comments. I'm grateful for the men and women of the Michigan National 

Guard. They really there are values based organization. These are people 

who put service before self and that's actually an Air Force value. And 

selfless service is the army value. It's part of our fabric of who we are. 

We're here to support our communities. And although we're being called 

on a lot for a lot of different missions, it's a very resilient force. We are 

never out of volunteers who are willing to come on to orders to answer 

that call, no matter what the mission has been over the last year, from 

floods to fire support to civil unrest to COVID testing food, bank support 

to COVID vaccination. Now. We still have people willing to step up, come 

on orders and support us when we need them to. So we're blessed to have 

very dedicated men and women across Michigan who are part of this this 
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organization. So thank you for the opportunity to participate here. And I 

look forward to any follow ups that may occur. Thank you. 

Ms. McFadden Thank you, sir. General Daugherty, 

MG Daugherty - WA Thanks. Well, I'll just echo my fellow adjutant general have had to say 

we're always receptive to receive additional help into our state with 

vaccination or anything else for that matter. But we're also under the belief 

that we're limited by the amount of vaccine. So we're looking at this as a 

three phase. The operation we're in phase one, a vaccination right now 

where I have five teams. That's my entry next will grow to ten, then 

potentially to 15. And that's going to tap me out with the number of 

medics. And after that, we would be very, very willing to accept some 

active duty folks to come here. And we're already in the planning stages 

of that. The State Emergency Management Division and the State 

Emergency Operations Center are actually in my agency. So we're directly 

tied into that as the National Guard. And we have Joint Base Lewis 

McChord right across the street. We're already in kind of preliminary 

conversations with those folks about how we would approach it. So I think 

we're going to have a pretty good plan for phase three will stand up. A 

dual status command will receive additional Title 10 forces. But again, I 

do believe the biggest hurdle that we have to overcome as a country is the 

vaccine supply itself. And so I'm very excited to see that the president is 

going to use the Defense Production Act to boost that production. I think 

that's going to be the linchpin to our final push to get through this thing 

and we're ready to receive. So if we receive in Title 10 people, that's great. 

If we're receiving vaccine, that's great. We'll take max advantage of all of 

it for the benefit of our citizens. And I'll just echo how proud I am of my 

team. You know, it hasn't been just a long year. It's been a long 20 years. 

And I just want to focus on that. We're all consumed with our domestic 

operations right now, but it is simultaneous with our overseas 

deployments, which have not let up one iota. And so we are an amazingly 

resilient force. But I'll also kind of echo my fellow TAGs' position that we 

could be a little bit bigger if we had a little bit more force structure. It 

wouldn't be such a stretch for us to get all these missions accomplished. 

So I hope that as we have a tendency to kind of reevaluate our Department 

of Defense is structured in the future, perhaps we can find a little bit more 

force structure for our National Guard because that will take some of the 

burden off of our soldiers, airmen, families and employers. Those folks 

are really shouldering a burden along with our soldiers and airmen. So a 

little bit of extra force structure for us would be a good thing. And I've 

enjoyed this conversation. I'll be available if anybody wants to shoot me 
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an email for a follow up or anything like that. So. So thanks. Back to you. 

Ms. McFadden Thank you, sir. And General Baldwin. 

MG Baldwin - CA Thanks and thanks again, everybody, for participating today. First on 

COVID positivity rates in the CalGuard for the state of California the last 

14 days, the positivity rate is down to eight point two percent. So that's the 

number of people to test positive based on the total population that they 

test, which they tested. Forty one million people in California, almost forty 

two million since testing began in the late spring. But this is down from a 

high of about 12 percent. Our numbers in the CalGuard trend below the 

statewide average. And we can get into the details offline if anyone's 

interested. And I think it's because of the measures that we take to protect 

our force, which we started earlier than they did with the general public. 

And we're more aggressive about enforcing it. So I'm not concerned about 

COVID positivity within the CalGuard because of the mitigation measures 

we've taken place. But those mitigation measures are successful because I 

am very concerned about the threat of code COVID how contagious it is, 

how deadly it can be. So we ruthlessly enforce our force mitigation 

measures to make sure that our service members and their families don't 

get sick. With regard to what's over the horizon in the short term, at least 

for California, as I mentioned before, where our demand signal is going to 

go up for guard mission sets in the next couple of months, we are working 

closely with our federal partners in the active component through FEMA 

and bringing in more Title 10 forces to assist us with vaccination sites. 

We've established a dual status command here in California to take 

command of the just shy of two hundred or so active component medical 

people that are helping us out in hospitals. And we will also be working, I 

believe, to help establish or mass vaccination sites with the assistance of 

our Title 10 partners. And we're looking forward to this. But I will echo 

what my fellow adjutant general said and I mentioned earlier is, is that the 

bottom line is that our mission set to continue to increase the demand 

signal for the National Guard goes up and up. It's we're largely victims of 

our own success in that regard because the National Guard has become so 

professionalized, still capable people are relying on us for more and more 

mission sets. To that end, the guard is not big enough and we need to grow. 

We also need to look at benefits, parity across the force, because the 

benefits that our soldiers and airmen receive when Title 32 missions and 

stated active duty missions are not commensurate with what our title 10 

Brothers and sisters receive. And we need to take a look at that because it 

has an impact on our ability to retain the top quality people that we have 

serving in today's National Guard. And we also all always need to 
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remember to look out for those employers of our part time forces that make 

huge sacrifices every day in their businesses or governmental agencies or 

even at home or wherever they work to allow our soldiers and airmen to 

take time away from their full time jobs, to go out and save lives across 

the nation and fight and win our nation's war around the world. Over.

Ms. McFadden Appreciate all the adjutants generals and General Fenwick for being here. 

Everyone, if you have any questions or follow-ons, please send it to our 

media org box and we will be getting back with you on that. This 

concludes our media roundtable on the COVID Mission Response. Thank 

you so much for being here. 

[End of Audio]

Duration: 55 minutes

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