OTTAWA—Canada’s military has mobilized 24,000 troops to be ready to assist civilian authorities as they grapple with the spread of COVID-19.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that military personnel are ready to respond to any calls for help from the provinces but so far, there have been no formal requests for assistance.

“The Canadian Armed Forces has been gearing up to support our efforts and our communities as we fight COVID-19,” Trudeau said Monday.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said the military has been told to draw up plans around three priorities — help efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19; provide support to vulnerable communities; and assist provinces, territories and municipalities with logistics.

Sajjan said that the Canadian Army has up to 10 regular force units across the country ready to go. “These immediate reaction units are ready to support any request for assistance. They can play a critical role in providing humanitarian support and delivering supplies,” he told a briefing Monday.

At the same time, those troops can also respond to any natural disasters such as floods or forest fires.

Sajjan said that special attention is being given to Indigenous and remote communities — in part through special Canadian Ranger patrols — that could be especially vulnerable to an outbreak.

Gen. Jonathan Vance, the chief of defence staff, said personnel are self-isolating to avoid catching the virus.

“We’ve got good plans in place and we’ve got the troops sequestered, staying as healthy as possible so we can mount several thousand people at the same time, if we need to,” Vance told reporters.

“We are going to be able to respond either with specialist capabilities like medical, logistics, engineering for a short duration event or for longer duration events, depending on what the need of the provinces is,” he said.

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“We’re also looking at significant responses in the event that communities start to suffer multiple events, including floods, forest fires, inside a COVID environment where the Armed Forces will be able to put in place necessary support to critical infrastructure, logistics as well as some medical support,” Vance said.

The military is continuing domestic and overseas operations but with changes to help protect personnel. That includes postponing planned troop rotations to overseas operations, putting a halt to training and putting plans for leave on hold.

And because recruitment has almost come to a standstill, Vance says that retirements may be voluntarily delayed “to preserve our strength.”

In the United States, the military there has deployed hospital ships to New York and Los Angeles, sent medical personnel and field hospitals to hard-hit cities and engineers are helping with the conversion of hotels and other facilities into temporary hospitals.

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