A group of approximately 75 Department of Defense medical personnel have deployed to a handful of California hospitals in two of the state’s regions hardest hit by the pandemic.

Roughly 65 U.S. Air Force doctors, nurses and other medical staff from the 60th Medical Group at Travis Air Force Base and around 10 U.S. Army nurses from a Fort Carson, Colorado-based military medical unit, have arrived and begun onboarding at four hospitals: Adventist Health Lodi Memorial in Lodi, Dameron Hospital in Stockton, Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno and Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton.

The deployment comes as California — and the entire country — is experiencing a devastating surge in COVID-19 cases. The hospitals selected are located in the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California, two regions of the state with 0% ICU bed capacity and currently under mandatory stay-at-home orders. On Tuesday, those orders were extended.

“We are in the middle of a big surge and a crisis in our health care system,” Fresno County Interim Health Officer Dr. Rais Vohra said in a media briefing Tuesday. “We’ve seen more fatalities this month than through any other month of the pandemic here in Fresno County."

During the briefing, Vohra highlighted a recent All Facilities Letter from the California Department of Public Health, reminding hospitals to have and implement Crisis Care Continuum Guidelines if experiencing a surge in COVID-19 patients. Vohra said the standards indicate a disaster situation.

“We’ve experienced, and continue to experience, just really severe impacts to our health care system, both in the capacity to house patients and to take care of them, as well as resources related to personnel and staffing,” Vohra said.

Brooke McCollough, operations executive for Lodi Memorial and Dameron hospitals said the people who’ve contracted COVID-19 are often in the hospital for “many days” and can take a long time to recover.

“These patients are very sick,” McCollough said. “It’s not just old people, it’s all over the place, all over the board, as far as race, age. Of course people with more serious illnesses are more susceptible to having more serious illness. This is just something more than what we’ve ever been through in my career.”

Two physicians, two physician assistants, seven respiratory therapists, 24 registered nurses and other support staff arrived at the hospitals in San Joaquin County Tuesday, according to a Lodi Memorial hospital spokesperson.

McCollough said Lodi Memorial and Dameron hospitals are facilities that have space for greater ICU bed capacity, but not enough physicians and nurses to care for patients if they are admitted.

“This additional staff will allow us to accept patients in some of those beds,” McCollough said. “We’ve also tried to secure traveling nurses, but the whole country is after the same group of nurses, and so it’s very hard to get those nurses to accept a contract for your facility because they’re all being used by other places.”

McCollough said the additional staffing will allow the hospitals in Lodi and Stockton to double their ICU bed capacity and allow the facilities to accept patients transferred from other regional hospitals.

“That would be our first priority, to help offload some of their patients, COVID or non-COVID. This just allows us to accept more patients in general,” McCollough said. “Because we have beds, but we don’t have staff for those beds, this will allow us to put patients in those beds.”

Approximately 15 U.S. Air Force and five U.S. Army military medical personnel, including doctors, nurses and respiratory technicians, began orientation at Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno on Tuesday, according to a military statement.

Dan Lynch, Fresno County’s director of emergency medical services, said the team’s primary mission is to support the hospital’s intensive care unit.

“Not only to sustain or maintain what they have available to them, but also to surge, to add in additional ICU beds to be used,” Lynch said, adding that the hospital does have the capacity to increase ICU bed availability.

“They just need the staffing and that’s what this will do,” Lynch said.

Col. Martin L. O'Donnell, public affairs officer with U.S. Army North (Fifth Army) said the personnel were expected to begin their first shifts Wednesday.

“The military medical personnel — doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists and others — are trained and certified in their respective fields. Many have deployed previously to support the whole-of-America response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” O'Donnell said.

Assistance at these hospitals in Lodi, Stockton and Fresno was requested through the state by San Joaquin and Fresno counties’ emergency medical services agencies.

“States identify if and where they need federal support and then request it from [Federal Emergency Management Agency], which is the lead federal agency for the nation's COVID-19 response, through what is called a mission assignment process. Once a mission assignment is approved, we work with U.S. Northern Command, the Department of Defense and the military services to quickly deploy forces to respond to affected areas,” O’Donnell said.

Several California facilities, including the hospitals in Lodi, Stockton and Fresno, previously received military support to deal with the coronavirus surge over the summer.

Lynch said this assistance is critical at facilities like the Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno, which serves as the only Level 1 trauma center between Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

“Its ability to accept and care for critical patients must be preserved,” Lynch said.

The medical personnel are expected to be deployed for 30 days, with the opportunity to extend, McCollough said.