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Seven cases of the novel coronavirus have been confirmed among the nearly
200 Hawaii Army National Guard soldiers who were part of a massive security force for the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration, officials said Thursday.
A total of 192 Army Guard soldiers and one Air Guard public affairs member left
on military flights starting Jan. 15 and returning home Sunday and Tuesday.
All 186 who tested negative will be retested again Sunday at a drive-thru facility, said Col. Stanley Garcia, the Hawaii National Guard’s director of military support.
More than 25,000 National Guard troops converged on the nation’s capital from all 50 states and territories to help secure the transition of power following a deadly insurrection on Jan. 6 that saw pro-Donald Trump rioters storm the U.S. Capitol.
“The seven (Hawaii troops) that are positive
remain in isolation and are asymptomatic,” the Hawaii National Guard said in a release. “Those seven and their families have the full support of the Hawaii National Guard. The State Department of Health has been notified and is assisting with contact tracing.”
In November the Hawaii National Guard announced the coronavirus-related death of an unidentified 52-year-old airman.
News of the seven positive cases follows a Monday Pentagon briefing on the
National Guard security
effort at which District of
Columbia National Guard commander Maj. Gen. William Walker raised alarm
at what was then almost
200 COVID-19 cases within the Guard force.
“I am deeply troubled by the number,” Walker said. He added that “we follow the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidelines, the Department of Defense
protocols. We test and screened. However, we have that number.”
Three flights of Hawaii
National Guard soldiers
returned Sunday to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. A final flight followed on Tuesday.
“We knew it (the mission) was a risk — as we all know with this COVID environment,” Garcia said. “But for us, we took whatever mitigation processes that we could do prior to them
leaving.”
Hawaii National Guard spokesman Jeff Hickman said the Hawaii troops were medically screened before every shift in D.C., and as they returned home, they were temperature-screened again and tested for COVID-19.
Initially, no coronavirus was apparent in the ranks, he said. Even with a negative test result, they will have
to quarantine at home for
14 days.
The Hawaii Army National Guard soldiers with the 1st Battalion, 487th Field Artillery, and 227th Brigade Engineer Battalion flew out to Washington, D.C., and back on three Hickam-based KC-135R refueling tankers and one C-17 cargo jet, officials said.
Face-masked troops toting M-4 rifles disembarked Sunday from one KC-135R at Hickam and were greeted with elbow bumps on the tarmac from Brig. Gen. Dann Carlson, commander of the Hawaii Air National Guard’s 154th Wing, and Col. Tracey Omori, chief of the joint staff of the Hawaii National Guard, among others.
The Hawaii Air National Guard’s 203rd Air Refueling Squadron and 204th Airlift Squadron provided the airlift support. Aircraft were flown out and back twice to drop off and pick up the troops.
“The flights were covered by federal dollars at no cost to the state,” Hickman said. “They were also used as training sorties for the crews from the Hawaii Air National Guard.”
The citizen soldiers will be mobilized for 31 days with duty in the nation’s capital, processing back home, 14 days of at-home quarantine and a couple days of leave, he said.
The cost for the mobilization is being borne by the federal government under what’s known as Title 32, which maintained control of the Hawaii troops under Gov. David Ige.
Hickman said the cost for the Hawaii effort won’t be known until later. The National Conference of State Legislatures provided a ballpark figure for ongoing use of the National Guard for COVID-19 relief, saying the tab can run as much as
$9 million per month per 1,000 troops mobilized.
About 800 Hawaii Guard troops remain mobilized for coronavirus help locally. President Joe Biden changed the federal payment to 100% for state COVID-19 relief duty from 75% under the Trump administration — a shift that U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz said will save Hawaii millions.
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