CANBERRA, March 23 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government has called out Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel to help manage the outbreak of COVID-19.
Linda Reynolds, the minister for defence, on Monday confirmed that ADF teams will help overwhelmed health authorities with contact tracing of COVID-19 cases.
Reconnaissance, planning and support teams from the ADF have also been deployed to state coordination centers.
Reynolds said that the assistance of the ADF would be invaluable at a time when Australia's healthcare system is facing unprecedented pressure.
"These ADF teams will provide logistics, transport, health and general planning assistance as the workload of civilian medical teams continues to increase as more Australians are diagnosed with, or affected by, COVID-19," she said.
"Defence continues to follow the advice of Australian health authorities when prioritizing its support arrangements."
The announcement comes one day after Prime Minister Scott Morrison flagged using the ADF to help supermarkets with grocery deliveries.
"All of those options are available in what's called the national coordinating mechanism. That's where the Department of Home Affairs is working with the food suppliers, with the supermarkets," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Sunday.
"It's important that we provide that support and we're there to help and the defence forces are turning up now just like they were during the bushfires. But it's a very different need."
It marks the second time that the ADF has been deployed in a support role in 2020 having already been called to assist with evacuations at the height of the bushfire crisis.
