Members of the Florida's National Guard help at a coronavirus testing site.

The National Guard has joined the novel coronavirus response effort to the tune of 24,800 members working in their local communities. They're on the front lines—testing staff and residents in nursing homes as well as helping to clean them. They're buttressing testing and screen sites, building field hospitals, and screening air travel passengers at airports. They're at risk of contracting the virus every day, and fewer than half of them have health care coverage through the military because they're not serving under an order from the federal government

For the 11,000 who have been deployed for the next 31 days under an executive order from Donald Trump signed this week, it's not a problem. They've got coverage under the TRICARE military health insurance program. It's available to Guard members who are under federal orders for more than 30 days. That's a big deal. They can use TRICARE health care coverage for prescriptions wherever they are, outside of military treatment facilities. But more half of all the Guard members deployed don’t have that coverage because it doesn't extend to deployments ordered by governors.