Pence: 500 additional health care workers to go to Arizona
At a press conference on Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence said Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey requested 500 additional health care workers to deal with rising coronavirus cases in the state. Pence said he instructed the acting secretary of homeland security to send the personnel.
Video Transcript
MIKE PENCE: We did hear in the briefing today of the need for personnel. We've already responded. 62 medical personnel arrived this week in Tucson, but the governor conveyed to us an additional request for another 500 personnel. And I've instructed the acting Secretary of Homeland Security to move out immediately on providing the additional doctors and nurses and technical personnel.
We want to say to all the incredible health care workers here in Arizona, help is on the way, and we're gonna spare no expense to provide the kind of reinforcements that you will need all across this state, should this coronavirus pandemic continue to expand in Arizona.
We received a request in the last 24 hours from the state of Arizona for roughly an additional 500 additional medical personnel. We'll be moving out on that very quickly. I think one of the aspects of our nation's response over the last four months has been the extraordinary efforts of not only National Guard medical personnel, but President Trump.
Whether it be New York, whether it be Louisiana, whether it be in Michigan or elsewhere, actually deployed active duty military medical personnel. And so the secretary and I will be speaking on Air Force Two with the leadership at FEMA to identify the personnel that are available. But they'll be packing up and moving out because we want the incredible health care workers here in Arizona to know that help is on the way. And we'll be detailing that to the governor in the next couple of days.
