NEW: The @BritishArmy, @RoyalNavy, @RoyalAirForce response to #coronavirus is rapidly expanding with 2,680+ personnel already deployed around the country & 1,000s more on standby. With 76 requests for aid & counting, the range of tasks is unprecedented
https://bit.ly/3c0TNNS 

Military Aid to Civilian Authorities include:
-Freeing up 2,312 vehicles to be used by troops in 34 locations as temporary ambulances + to deliver food & other equipment
-Using @DefenceES to purchase ventilators for @NHSuk, drawing on ability to rearm military at speed in war 1/

- Helping to turn several sites into temporary Nightingale hospitals, starting with the giant ExCel Exhibition Centre in London but also including constructions in Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff, Harrogate and possibly Farnborough in Hampshire + others being scoped 2/

- Building 5 temporary patient recovery centres in Cumbria, with 500 beds for patients discharged from hospital but not well enough to return home
- Assisting in setting up #coronavirus test centres, such as in Nottingham and at the Chessington World of Adventures theme park 3/

- Troops are transporting testing equipment to labs & delivering protective gear to hospitals
- Freeing up parts of the @DefenceHQ estate to be used as temporary mortuaries for coronavirus victims. This includes a hangar on a base in Scotland & 2 on a Northern Ireland base 4/

- Scoping out using parts of the @DefenceHQ estate to house hundreds of low risk prisoners
- Flying #coronavirus patients across the UK to hospital; helping @foreignoffice to repatriate British nationals stuck overseas
- Driving ambulances 5/

- Supporting Britain's overseas territories, including by sending additional military kit and medics to the Falklands and a Royal Fleet Auxiliary support ship to the Caribbean as part of hurricane relief duties

There’s lots more but that gives an idea of the range of jobs 6/6

HQ Standing Joint Command in Aldershot is running the military's coronavirus response, led by @UrchTyrone. It’s set to be the largest mobilisation within the UK in decades, with 23,000 servicemen and women being assembled as part of what is being called the #COVIDSupportForce.

Officers are mindful they’re supporting, rather than heading, the #COVID19 response effort, with the civilian authorities in overall charge even though the military often bring the greater experience of crisis management, according to defence sources 1/

"Humble education has gone on," a senior defence source said, describing the need to assist local authorities and central government ministries without appearing to take over. "People (in civilian organisations) do not want to be seen as failing." 2/

Dozens of military advisers and planners are embedded at the heart of the UK's civilian #COVID19 response, including at the @DHSCgovuk, where the source said they had become "indispensable". They’re also assisting at the Cabinet Office & @mhclg 3/

Dozens more soldiers, sailors & airmen with expertise in planning have also been deployed across the country to support 38 local resilience forums, which head the preparations and the execution on the ground of the coronavirus response. 4/4