Yahoo Finance’s Melody Hahm spoke with John Rotruck, Commanding Officer of the USNS Mercy about how the Naval hospital ship has been helping to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: Well, one of the measures that's being taken to address shortages at hospitals, both of beds and equipment, is moving some folks onto military hospital ships. Our Melody Hahm spoke with Captain John Rotruck. He is the commanding officer of the Navy's hospital ship Mercy. And she talked to him about supply chain.

JOHN ROTRUCK: In reality, in large part, virtually everything that we order becomes through the same supply chain system that any civilian hospital would order through. So there's a little more bureaucracy attached to it, but ultimately the suppliers are the same. We're getting regular priority through the normal supply chain. The Department of Defense does have some stockpile, so if we have a requirement that the civilian supply chain can't satisfy, we do have some access to some personal protective equipment. But if we need to use that, we certainly will, but otherwise, we prefer to just use the same supply chain than all the civilian hospitals are using.

JULIE HYMAN: So Melody, obviously a limited supply of stuff trying to be apportioned out to both these military hospital facilities, as well as civilian hospitals. I'm also curious, there was some talk about who exactly would be going onto these hospital ships, right? So what's the latest on that? Is it people actually suffering from COVID-19, or is it the folks who are sort of making way for capacity at civilian hospitals so that they can--

MELODY HAHM: Yes, Julie.

JULIE HYMAN: [INAUDIBLE] --19 patients?

MELODY HAHM: Yeah, that's an important clarification that the captain really emphasized yesterday. This is for non-COVID-19 patients. Of course, there are over 800 personnel on that ship right now that traveled from San Diego to the Port of L.A. I asked him, you know, there must be several people who could be asymptomatic on that ship right now. We have obviously covered the cruise industry, and how it becomes a petri dish of sorts as soon as one person gets it. And he did acknowledge the fact that they're closely monitoring not only the staff, but also the patients who come through who may have been exposed at the hospitals that they were being treated at, even though initially they don't have symptoms.

So as you can imagine, this is going to be a very interesting beta test as to how you can really contain the virus even in close quarters. He did acknowledge that the personnel and any patients will not be allowed to kind of mosey about, roam the pier. This is a very solitary, isolationist sort of approach. And that's the intention, to make sure that it can be contained, and people who do need treatment outside of coronavirus-related cases can get it properly. I want to point out that there will not be obstetrics or pediatric units on the ship, but all other sorts of services will be provided, and there are some operating rooms for any kind of emergency surgeries.