TechLink, the U.S. Department of Defense’s technology transfer intermediary, announced on Friday the availability of license agreements for the U.S. Army’s suite of IP covering Colorimetric Sensor Arrays and the VK3, a portable chemical and biological agent testing device.
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The handheld VK3 device uses a camera and small computer to identify chemical and biological samples by analyzing colorimetric sensors on an assay. (US Army photo courtesy of TechLink)
Invented by scientists at the U.S. Army’s DEVCOM Chemical Biological Center, the handheld tester uses a digital camera and microprocessor to identify chemicals or biological agents by analyzing colorimetric assays.
Associated with this invention, the U.S. Government has been granted three 20-year U.S. utility patents:
U.S. Patent 11,231,404 “Sampling and Detection Kit for Chemical and Biological Materials,” issued on Jan. 25, 2022.
U.S. Patent 11,221,319 “Sampling and Detection Kit for Chemical and Biological Materials,” issued on Jan. 11, 2022.
U.S. Patent 10,408,809 “Sampling and Detection Kit for Chemical and Biological Materials,” issued on Sept. 10, 2019.
This intellectual property covers both a device and a method for collecting, analyzing, and identifying chemical and biological samples in solid or liquid form. The analysis compares the color change of Colorimetric Sensor Arrays over time with signatures for known materials and compounds from a library.
This patented configuration enables the compound library to identify the unique indicator-response signatures that provide accurate classification of a wide-variety of chemical and biological agents.
Through technology transfer, the U.S. Army’s world-class research and IP portfolio represent a business opportunity ( view all available technologies here ).
Interested companies are invited to learn more and submit a patent license application. Terms of a license agreement are negotiable.
TechLink’s staff of certified licensing professionals provide free consultation and licensing assistance to interested parties.
“The Army’s Chemical Biological Center has a unique role in tech development that cannot be duplicated by private industry or research universities,” said Christie Bell, senior technology manager at TechLink. “Technologies designed to help our Armed Forces often have commercial potential and this is one of them.”
About TechLink
TechLink is a Department of Defense Partnership Intermediary for Technology Transfer per Authority 15 USC 3715. For 20 years, TechLink has facilitated public-private partnerships with DOD research centers and laboratories.
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There wasn’t just one thing that allowed the Air Force women to overcome a pesky challenge from Utah State on Saturday.
Maybe that’s the key to why this program keeps chugging along in ways it never has before – because they’ve suddenly filled their arsenal with so many ways to win.
In beating Utah State 67-56 at Clune Arena in a unique spot as a favored team needing a win, the Falcons answered immediately all five times the Aggies scored to tie or take the lead (each time with a different player), they piled up seven steals to gain separation in the third quarter and had signature style performances from all three seniors on a day they celebrated the outgoing class.
The win extends Air Force’s school record for victories in a season (15) and conference season (9) and guarantees the program will not finish below .500 for the first time since it moved to Division 1 in 1996.
“They really believe,” coach Chris Gobrecht said. “They believe they’re going to find a way, so that’s how they play.”
The win pushes Air Force (15-11, 9-6 Mountain West) into sole possession of fourth place in the Mountain West, half a game up on No. 5 Wyoming. The top five earn first-round byes in the conference tournament. Colorado State is a game back in sixth place but with two more games remaining than the Falcons. Air Force would hold the tiebreaker over the Rams.
Those stakes made the game against the Aggies (8-19, 3-13) all the more important, and Utah State made things difficult behind 27 points and 10 rebounds from Adryana Quezada.
Air Force senior Cierra Winters scored the game’s first six points en route to 13, but Utah State recovered to take the lead early in the second quarter.
Winters immediately responded with the next five points.
The Aggies tied it a few minutes later and freshman Lauren McDonald hit a 3 to push Air Force back in front.
That’s how it went through the two middle quarters, with Kamri Heath, Nikki McDonald and Riley Snyder coming up with immediate answers just as the Aggies would tie or move in front.
“We know that every player on our team can score,” Winters said. “We just trust each other to get it done.”
Winters had three of the Falcons’ seven third-quarter steals, with the defense leading the way to close the quarter on a 10-2 run and pull ahead by eight.
The Falcons finally opened their first double-digit lead in the fourth quarter and Gobrecht removed her three seniors together with a minute remaining. There is still one home game left on the schedule, but they opted to celebrate the seniors on Saturday to ensure families could travel in for the weekend game.
Seniors Audrey Gadison (knee injury) and Briana Autry-Thompson (academics) were unavailable to play, but were honored along with their classmates in a pregame ceremony.
And the seniors led. Winters had five steals to go with her 13 points. Snyder, celebrating her birthday, scored a team-high 17 points with six rebounds. Haley Jones added nine points, eight rebounds and two steals.
“We knew that’s a game we should have won,” Snyder said. “We know we’re going to get everybody’s best. We have to make sure we’re winning the games that we need to win, which, honestly, from here on out we want to win every single one of them.”
Gobrecht inherited a program in 2015 that had lost 43 consecutive games against Mountain West competition. Her first two seasons produced a record of 5-54. Now, the Falcons have won as many games in this month (4) with two games remaining as they had ever won in a full conference season before her arrival.
“(Assistant coach) Stacey (McIntyre) and I gave each other a little extra pat on the back and said, ‘Did we ever think we’d get to 15?’” Gobrecht said of the record number of wins the program has posted. “So, yes, it does, it feels pretty good. I couldn’t’ think of a better bunch to be able to celebrate it with.
Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance (DDG-111), left, USS America (LHA-6), and Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), transit the Philippine Sea on Jan. 22, 2022. US Navy Photo
SAN DIEGO, Calif. – The U.S. Navy needs a fleet of more than 500 ships to meet its commitments to the soon-to-be released National Defense Strategy, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said on Friday.
“I’ve concluded – consistent with the analysis – that we need a naval force of over 500 ships,” Gilday said during the WEST 2022 conference, co-hosted by AFCEA and the U.S. Naval Institute.
“We need 12 carriers. We need a strong amphibious force to include nine big-deck amphibs and another 19 or 20 [LPDs] to support them. Perhaps 30 or more smaller amphibious ships to support Maritime Littoral Regiments… to 60 destroyers and probably 50 frigates, 70 attack submarines and a dozen ballistic missile submarines to about a 100 support ships and probably looking into the future about 150 unmanned.”
According to Gilday’s list, that force would be about 513 ships with 263 manned combatants, plus 100 logistics and supply ships and 150 unmanned vessels. Gilday told reporters later that the total would include Littoral Combat Ships.
“LCS is in that mix,” he said.
The numbers Gilday said on Friday are largely in line with a notional high-end total included in the abbreviated Fiscal Year 2022 long-range shipbuilding plan. The ongoing congressionally-mandated force structure assessment will inform the Fiscal Year 2024 budget, Gilday said. But details of the FSA have largely been under wraps as the Pentagon continues to craft its next national defense strategy.
“We’re going through another force structure assessment right now, but based on the hard work we’ve done over the last five or six years we’re thinking about how we would fight,” Gilday said. “How would we fight differently in terms of a wide, vast ocean like the Pacific?”
For the last three years, the Navy’s future force structure has been in flux, undergoing several different fleet reviews while the Department of the Navy and Pentagon leadership underwent unprecedented churn in 2019 and 2020.
The attempt at a force structure assessment led to the Trump administration releasing an ambitious fleet plan toward the end of its tenure. The Biden administration shelved the plan shortly after President Joe Biden took office, prompting the Navy and the Office of the Secretary of the Defense to again reevaluate the force under new Pentagon leadership and the prospect of a flat budget outlay.
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday speaking at WEST 2022 on Feb. 18, 2022.
Over the last year, the Navy has set out on an aggressive testing program to refine the emerging Distributed Maritime Operations concept that will connect crewed and unmanned ships and aircraft to operate in concert across the vast distances of the Pacific.
In particular, Large Scale Exercise 2021 tested DMO – in addition to the Marines Corps’ Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations and Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment – across three combatant commands in a networked exercise with live and simulated exercises. The Navy and Marines are also testing deployed carrier strike and amphibious ready groups with complicated battle problems that further test the underlying concepts. Meanwhile, in U.S. 5th Fleet, the ongoing testing of small unmanned vessels is refining how the service thinks about employing them in the future.
“The real message I wanted to get out of those numbers, it’s actually grounded on how we’re going to fight,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Marine Corps has an ongoing amphibious ship requirements study that it will ultimately deliver to Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger said the study is about 30 to 45 days away from completion and he expects the analysis to call for approximately 31 amphibious ships. So far, Del Toro has received two progress updates about the study, Berger said.
“If it’s anything like the previous studies – we’ve had I think 12 studies in the last 13 years – every one of them came out about 31 amphib ships,” Berger told reporters at WEST. “So I don’t know what this one will come to, but I can’t see it radically different from that. That’s requirements. That’s our Marine Corps requirement. That’s maybe different from what the nation can afford.”
The study is assessing the requirements for both large amphibious ships and the Light Amphibious Warship, which the Marine Corps wants to shuttle Marines around islands and shorelines in the Indo-Pacific. LAW is supposed to have a beaching capability so it can easily deliver Marines to the shore. While the Marine Corps is behind the push for LAW, money to purchase the platform would come out of the Navy’s shipbuilding account.
Gilday’s affirmation of the fleet follows reports the that the Biden administration is planning late influx funds into the Pentagon budget for FY 2023. USNI News reported earlier this week that the new topline could be as high $773 billion.
CALGARY, Alberta — The resurgence began a month ago, when the Blue Jackets responded to an “embarrassing” 9-2 loss to the Florida Panthers by winning their next game.
A 2-1 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers in their first game against Cam Atkinson wasn’t a thing of beauty, but it was a sign the Jackets still cared enough about this season to fight. It’s a trait that emanates from a group of leaders who’ve refused to let this season completely slide off the rails despite a few more humbling losses.
Since that initial drubbing in Florida, the Jackets have lost 8-4 to the Panthers in a rematch at Nationwide Arena and been blown out at home and on the road by the Calgary Flames.
They’ve also won six of their past eight games, including a 4-1-0 record on a road trip that covered 11 days, more than 4,000 roundtrip miles and concluded Thursday with a 7-4 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks at the United Center.
“There’s not going to be any quit on this team,” forward Gustav Nyquist said after a practice early in the trip, a workout that followed a win over the Washington Capitals in which he and captain Boone Jenner had combined for a winning goal with less than a minute left. “We’ve got basically half a season left, and we know what we’re capable of doing … and no matter what happens, there’s not going to be any quit on this team. We’ll make sure of that, for sure.”
That attitude was born about halfway through the first blowout loss to the Panthers. Fans in Sunrise, Florida chanted for a 10th goal. Their faces burning with embarrassment, the Jackets refused to allow it and then flew home to start picking up the pieces.
Coach Brad Larsen worked them hard in their next practice, reminding them how difficult it is to win in the NHL.
They beat the Flyers a couple days later to show their pulse still existed.
The next big challenge was a 6-0 loss at home Jan. 26 against the Flames, who so thoroughly dominated the Blue Jackets that they set a franchise record with 62 shots on goal.
That again didn’t sit well with the Jackets’ leadership group, starting with Jenner and Nyquist. They have taken over at key times during the past eight games to produce the Jackets’ most extended winning stretch since the season’s first month.
They still trailed the Boston Bruins by nine points for the last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference going into practice Saturday, but things sure felt a lot better flying home from Chicago than they did from South Florida a month earlier.
Patrik Laine’s scorching hot streak is another huge reason for their recent success, with 10 goals and 16 points during an eight-game point streak, but he’s not the only one who’s made clutch plays. All four wins on the road trip featured key moments from Nyquist, Jenner, Sean Kuraly, Jakub Voracek, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Zach Werenski and others.
“It starts with us as leaders,” said Jenner, whose goal Thursday in Chicago was his team-leading 20th of the season. “We have to be the ones leading the way and bringing everyone along with us. You want to get the results, but it’s more about how we play.”
The tricky part is keeping that going. A trio of rookies — Cole Sillinger, Yegor Chinakhov and Trey Fix-Wolansky — have all come up with some big at times in the past couple weeks, but the Jackets’ resilience is powered by veterans.
That’s no coincidence.
“That’s why they’re your leaders,” Larsen said. “That’s why they’re in those positions, making the money they do, and playing the minutes they play. We rely on those guys, and whenever you get on a win streak, generally it’s because of those guys. They’re upping the ante and they’ve gotten more competitive.”
WASHINGTON — The Space Force’s procurement organization has set 2026 as a target date for delivering “maximum operational capability” in the form of new, more resilient space systems.
That timeline, says Space Systems Command Executive Director Joy White, was set by SSC Commander Lt. Gen. Michael Guetlein and is informed by growing concerns among the service’s leadership about growing on-orbit threats.
Speaking during a Space Symposium 365 event this week, White didn’t elaborate on the threat assessments that support the 2026 need date, but said there’s an urgency among the service’s acquisition leadership to ensure its processes and culture are structured to support rapid development and fielding of new space capabilities.
While it’s not immediately clear how SSC leadership defines “maximum operational capability,” the command’s push for fielding more resilient constellations — and doing so quickly — aligns with messaging from Air Force and Space Force leadership.
Defining “a resilient space order of battle” tops Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s list of operational imperatives, which he outlined earlier this year. Chief of Space Operations Gen. John Raymond said during a Mitchell Institute event in January the service would “begin to pivot significantly” to a resilient architecture this year. And the Biden administration’s nominee to serve as the Air Force’s first-ever space acquisition executive, Frank Calvelli, brought the point home during his confirmation hearing Thursday.
“We are at a critical juncture for our space defense architecture, and there is a real sense of urgency to act,” Calvelli, a former National Reconnaissance Office official, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “The nation needs to make its space architecture more resilient so that it can be counted on during times of crisis and conflict.”
For SSC, supporting the push for resiliency means organizational and cultural changes as well as finding new ways to engage with industry and streamline its processes, White said. On the organizational side, the command is poised to announce a realigned structure in the coming weeks aimed at reducing bureaucracy, increasing industry engagement and tightening its focus on key mission areas. As for shifting the culture to be “laser-focused on the threat,” White said SSC has mandated monthly threat briefings for all acquisition personnel and is offering content from those briefings to industry.
White also discussed a new initiative to leverage commercial innovation called “SSC Front Door,” which she said will give industry a more clear entry point to engage with the command. The front door team is made up of leaders across the space acquisitions, operations and science and technology community who are “empowered to make opportune investments in high-potential technologies.”
In the area of requirements generation, White said SSC works closely with the Space Force’s new Space Warfighting Analysis Center, which is developing force designs for key Space Force mission areas. As the SWAC completes its designs, the Program Integration Council – made up of representatives from each space acquisition organization – recommends requirements to support the proposed architecture, which go to the Space Acquisition Council for approval. The approved requirements are then fed to the relevant program offices at SSC or another acquisition organization.
“This new process enables end-to-end capability delivery, unity of effort in the space realm and encourages bold thinking to ensure resilient warfighting capabilities,” White said.
As SSC hones its processes and culture to support the Space Force’s resiliency push, the Air Force’s space acquisition and integration office is working to ensure its near-term budget requests reflect Kendall’s operational imperatives.
During a Feb. 10 Space Force IT Day hosted by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, Chief of Space Force Acquisition and Planning Col. Dan Visosky said the service is looking at whether it can make changes to the fiscal 2023 budget, though most of the focus is on affecting the fiscal 2024 budget cycle.
“The timelines are tight,” he said. “They’re being built to go quick right now to affect those [program objective memorandums], but I would look for them to be enduring. I think they’re going to be ongoing, year over year, and that we’re going to keep on getting after it through each [Program Objective Memorandum] cycle.”
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – If Rocky Bleier had been a Purple Heart recipient who never played professional football, he still would have been admired in the Johnstown region for the sacrifices he made for his country.
And if Bleier had only been a four-time Super Bowl champion with the gritty, blue-collar 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers, without ever serving a day in the military, he still would have been a beloved local sports figure.
But he did both.
And when you put those shiny rings together with that distinguished medal, you get a man who Jean Desrochers, 1st Summit Arena @ Cambria County War Memorial’s general manager, referred to as “a true American badass.”
On Friday, Bleier told stories from his life in the Army and the National Football League during a banquet hosted by the Johnstown Tomahawks hockey team to raise money for the arena’s Veterans Committee.
Bleier started the event by recalling his days in the military and paying tribute to folks who support local veterans.
“Obviously, veterans’ issues are very important to me, having been a veteran myself, especially during that period of time where, we’re old enough, going through the Vietnam era and then the return of those service people … that unfortunately were tied to the conflict, rather than to the service to his country, and were looked down upon and not given recognition,” Bleier told a packed house at the Holiday Inn Johnstown-Downtown.
“Because (of) the fact that I had the opportunity to come back into a high-profile industry, at least I could be somewhat of a spokesperson for the veterans’ issues thereafter.”
Bleier joined the Steelers in 1968, playing one season before being drafted into the Army and sent off to the Vietnam War. He was injured by gunfire and grenade shrapnel, causing leg damage so severe that he was told his football career was over.
He received a message soon thereafter from the Steelers’ owner.
“I got a postcard in the mail, simple postcard, and it had two lines on it,” Bleier said. “It said this: ‘Rock, team’s not doing well. We need you. – Art Rooney.’ Somebody needed me. Now, he didn’t really need me. But somebody took the time to care, and it’s the impact that we have on people and one another that really makes a difference.”
Bleier returned to the NFL, playing from 1971 to 1980. He regaled the audience with stories from his playing days, including the Immaculate Reception, which he said “was the start of a belief system that we could be in the big game and we had the personnel to be able to do that. That became very, very important for us.”
And he recalled greeting Rooney in the locker room after the Steelers won their first world championship in Super Bowl IX.
“I was the first one to get to hug him and thank him for getting us there,” Bleier said.
Bleier looked back on his college days, too, when he played alongside Johnstown’s Pete Duranko at Notre Dame, winning the 1966 national championship.
“Those stories that you have heard about Pete are all true,” Bleier said. “He was a character. He was funny. He had a great, great, great sense of humor all the way.”
Bleier provided some thoughts about the Steelers’ future following the retirement of longtime franchise quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, leaving Mason Rudolph and Dwayne Haskins as the only quarterbacks on the current roster.
“(Getting a free agent) may happen, but it’s got to be the right deal and the right person to fit within the organization here with the Steelers,” Bleier said. “They won’t draft a quarterback No. 1, No. 2. They might pick up a quarterback (in the) fourth, fifth round, depending on who’s around. But, if not, they’ll stay with who they’ve got and build an offense around it, build a running game, build an offensive line. They have to do that. That becomes really the most important thing, rather than the quarterback.”
Bleier also spent time signing autographs and talking with fans. He received several gifts, including items from Tony Penna Jr., owner of Main Street Hobby.
“We bought a collection and we got some of his personal effects, which was a baby picture and a (religious) record,” Penna said. “We got some really cool stuff. … I just figured some of this stuff was a little too intimate not to give back to him.”
Money from the event will go to the Veterans Committee to help in its mission to pay tribute to local veterans at the War Memorial.
“We’re certainly appreciative,” Veterans Committee Chairman Marty Kuhar said. “We’re excited, just like anybody, to have Rocky Bleier come in and to have him be part of the idea of raising money for us. We’ll use it between our landscaping for the veterans’ monument down there at the park, or the museum, all the things that we do. We’re certainly excited. We can always use the money.”
Bleier dropped the ceremonial first puck at the Tomahawks game against the Jamestown Rebels as 2,095 fans watched. He signed autographs for a long line of fans well into the third period of the North American Hockey League contest.
OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs (ODVA) said Oklahoma has reached a special milestone. Oklahoma is now number one among the 50 states for veterans, per capita, in receipt of federal, service-connected disability benefits. This represents a $2.4 billion cash infusion into the Oklahoma economy.
“We have an amazing veterans community here in Oklahoma and this could not have been accomplished without all the veteran service organizations banding together as a team and working really hard to achieve this,” said Joel Kintsel, ODVA executive director.
Out of approximately 300,000 Oklahoma veterans, there are about 100,000 veterans with some level of service-connected disability. Service-connected disability means that the federal VA has established that a veteran has a compensable injury or medical condition resulting from military service. For the 100,000 service-connected, disabled Oklahoma veterans, this reflects $2.4 billion provided directly to the individual veterans.
“So much can be accomplished when we all work together. Hitting number one was a huge win for the Oklahoma team,” said Pete Peterson, chairman, Oklahoma Veterans Council.
“Congratulations to our great Veteran Service Officers across Oklahoma for the outstanding achievement of being first among the 50 States,” said Charles O’Leary, state commander, American Legion. “All of us sacrificed during our time in the military and disability is the price we paid for that sacrifice.”
“The VFW is very proud to be part of Oklahoma’s accomplishment. This is proof of the power of veterans helping veterans,” said Jim Basset, state commander, Veterans of Foreign Wars.
“I am tremendously proud of ODVA’s role in bringing Oklahoma to number one,” said Larry Van Schuyver, state commander, Military Order of the Purple Heart and chairman, ODVA Veterans Commission. “Our executive director has shown tremendous leadership leading Oklahoma’s effort to the top.”
“Oklahoma has achieved this level of success in serving veterans because there is no competition in helping veterans. Oklahoma service organizations have unified in this effort. We are one team and one family taking care of veterans,” said Danny Oliver, state adjutant, Disabled American Veterans.
“As a paralyzed Oklahoma veteran, this issue is near to my heart,” said Bill Kokendoffer, state commander, Paralyzed Veterans of America. “At the PVA, we are committed to serving paralyzed veterans and we are proud to be a part of the effort to be number one.”
It is estimated that nearly half of the Oklahoma veterans who are eligible for compensation for injuries and/or medical conditions arising from military service have not yet applied.
Oklahoma veterans who need assistance with filing a claim for service-connected disability are invited to call or visit on-line: (405) 523-4000; www.oklahoma.gov/veterans
FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida — A U.S. Coast Guard vessel on Thursday offloaded more than 30 metric tons of cocaine and marijuana reportedly worth over $1 billion that was seized at sea during a months-long deployment off the coast of South America.
The haul of illegal narcotics brought home by the U.S. Coast Guard cutter James was one of the biggest in recent memory, a reflection of increasingly sophisticated U.S. arsenal that includes powerful drones and special infrared cameras that can detect heat from small cocaine-laden vessels.
But it also highlights a recent surge in narcotics coming from Colombia, a close U.S. ally and the world’s top producer of cocaine.
The Biden administration’s top anti-narcotics officials traveled to South Florida to welcome back the vessel’s crew and tout the Coast Guard’s role interdicting drugs before they reach American streets.
“We are hitting the drug traffickers where it hits them most: their pocketbooks,” said Dr. Rahul Gupta, head of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Gupta said the Biden administration is seeking to increase the U.S. government’s budget to build up the nation’s addiction treatment infrastructure and reduce the supply of synthetic opioids like fentanyl and other drugs.
But the record busts of late by the Coast Guard, federal law enforcement and partner nations also underscores how little the flow of cocaine coming from Latin America has eased since President Richard Nixon declared war on drugs a half century ago.
Coca cultivation in Colombia in 2020 soared to 245000 hectares (945 square miles), enough to produce 1,010 metric tons of cocaine, according to the White House’s latest report on harvesting trends in the Andean region. As recently as 2014, potential production was less than half that amount. Production in Peru and Bolivia has also steadily risen.
Admiral Karl Schultz, the U.S. Coast Guard commander, said those numbers would be even higher, and the destabilizing impact on the region from transnational criminal organizations even worse, if not for the U.S. interdiction efforts.
“Does it matter? It absolutely matters because it kind of keeps a lid on things,” he said.
He was echoed by Ambassador Todd Robinson, who leads the State Department’s bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.
“It’s not just always about seizures,” said Robinson, who previously served as the U.S.’ top diplomat in Guatemala and Venezuela, two major transit zones for Colombian cocaine. “It’s also about building our partners’ capacity.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a catastrophic impact on the health care system in the United States and globally. In the US alone, over 20 percent of all health care workers have left the profession since the start of the pandemic.
As across the US, the pandemic has hit Baltimore, Maryland with repeated devastating surges. Nearly 1 million people in Maryland have officially been infected with COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, and 13,720 have died.
A nurse looking out a hospital window (Credit: pexels.com/EVG Photos)
In January, COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations reached all-time highs throughout Maryland due to the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant, with a peak of 3,462 people hospitalized on January 11. As with many other Democratic Party-led states, Maryland is prematurely lifting its mask mandate just as cases are once again starting to rise.
The World Socialist Web Site conducted the following interview with a public health professional who works at a hospital in Baltimore and requested anonymity. They describe the horrific conditions in their hospital during the recent surge of the Omicron variant.
Evan Blake (EB): Can you describe your role at the hospital where you work and speak about the situation there, specifically the issue of redeployment?
Health Professional (HP): I am a public health professional and administer externally funded programs, including FEMA funding for COVID relief, our mobile vaccination unit, and our hospital based vaccine clinics, as well as being involved in data analysis and surge response.
I’m at a hospital system in the Baltimore region, and “redeployment” of staff within hospitals is happening at my system as well as multiple others in this region and the DC/Capital region. I don’t think that a lot of people outside the health care system know that this is even happening, let alone what it means.
No one without relevant certifications is caring for patients; however, hundreds of staff have been pulled from other job functions (finance, IT, philanthropy, etc.) to work directly in support roles. That would include covering for EVS (cleaning patient rooms and facilities), bringing meals and trays back and forth, transporting patients, assisting the registrar, working at the vaccine clinics, etc.
This is not without risk—being in the facility itself and being in patient rooms is obviously a risk, but we also run the risks of very aggrieved patients, families and community members.
We have had MULTIPLE bomb threats, armed individuals trying to break in, armed individuals ACTUALLY breaking in, stalking, tires slashed in our parking lots, people attempting to drive into or through the outdoor vaccine sites, people coughing or spitting on us. The nurses and social workers have taken the brunt of this. For example, I know at least one palliative care social worker that quit after she was attacked by a family member as they weren’t allowed to see their family member who was dying from COVID.
Nurses so far have not been allowed to unionize within this state that I know of (some of our support staff are unionized under SEIU), and many are out sick or outright quitting due to the conditions and the emotional and physical stress.
With regard to direct patient care, all direct patient care is still done by doctors, nurses, NPs, techs, respiratory therapists, etc., but it is harder and harder to find qualified people to fill these jobs. Many hospitals are paying out the nose for travel nurses to fill positions but refuse to pay their own staff nurses more.
We have been pulling nursing students out of school early and pulling doctors and nurses out of retirement. Many nurses have had to redeploy to ICU units or the ED [Emergency Department], for example many labor and delivery nurses were redeployed to an area ED because so many pregnant individuals with COVID were coming in.
Concurrently, I could not tell you a single member of any executive staff in this entire state (or outside of it, to be honest) that has publicly taken any kind of pay cut. Throughout the entire pandemic, myself and other hospital staff, including nurses, have not gotten any hazard pay. At one point we got a small (~$250) bonus for the holidays. Many of us were furloughed and some positions have been eliminated; I do think this has been worse for other systems but could not tell you for sure.
It is unconscionable to me that people making well into the six figures would not redistribute at least some of that salary to individuals doing dangerous direct patient care during a deadly pandemic, but I can’t even find anyone suggesting this step. Directors were also given a larger (but still small) raise than other levels of staff; to me this seemed like it should be the other way around.
The terrible conditions at my hospital are compounded by the feeling that I am living in two different worlds, or a sort of separate reality within and without the hospital.
When I enter our main hospital entrance, I immediately see a large portrait of a colleague who passed away from COVID, along with handwritten remembrances of him and other colleagues. We are wearing masks and face shields for hours at a time still, and many of our colleagues (a higher number than ever before) are out sick, but we are being asked to return faster than ever before as well, sometimes when we still have symptoms.
The emotional toll of caring for patients or populations who are suffering greatly and not necessarily being able to help them, and now it’s kids as well, is causing so many of us, me included, to suffer from anxiety, depression, insomnia, panic attacks, etc.
But then when I go outside the hospital, it seems like no one even cares. I go to the grocery store and many individuals are not even wearing masks at all. People are blithely traveling internationally or to and from areas of high incidence, people are at gyms without masks, people are going to concerts and parties inside with huge groups, people are eating and drinking inside. It is incredibly disheartening.
So many of us are burning out or suffering, and executive leadership has seemed to do very little to directly confront this. Sometimes staff will get a nice email thanking us or a small gift or a free meal, but I could not tell you a substantive gesture that has been made by executive leadership that would create real change and demonstrate an understanding of what staff, particularly patient care staff, is going through.
EB: The conditions you’ve described are absolutely horrific, the opposite of what it should be like in a health care facility. Was “redeployment” happening during previous surges, or is the Omicron surge the first time it’s happened for your hospital? Can you also tell me a bit more about what your experience has been like during the pandemic more broadly? Has the Omicron surge been significantly worse than previous surges or comparable?
HP: Redeployment was happening during previous surges but not nearly to the degree or scale of what happened during Omicron.
My experience during the pandemic has honestly been awful. I am actually looking to move out of health care at this point, and I have been working in the health care field in Baltimore for almost 15 years, specifically for six years with my current organization. I have never felt this burnt out or disconnected from why I originally wanted to work in the field.
Working at a hospital, particularly in public health, in Baltimore has never been “easy,” per se, but I have never once experienced the level of public vitriol and targeted harassment that I have experienced almost daily during the pandemic.
In addition to the bomb threats, armed robberies and vandalism, we have experienced people threatening us at vaccine clinics, people screaming at me or coughing in my face if I wear anything with the logo of the hospital or anything like that in the grocery store.
I know it’s been awful for the nurses, but also for other individuals. In particular, I have a coworker who is a palliative care social worker. We were unable to let many families physically be in the room with their dying loved ones, and outside of the many threats and abuse from family members, the emotional burden of that is awful.
I will say that many local small businesses, particularly restaurants, have been supportive and amazing. Many restaurants are STILL donating food to frontline workers. And many coworkers stepped up to help and support one another (ironically, we have a peer support group for emotional distress that we can’t start yet … because of COVID).
I do think the Omicron surge has been harder emotionally because many people in the “outside world,” including sometimes our own family members or friends, and politicians, seem to be operating as if the pandemic is over. So there’s the emotional burden of that on top of everything else.
EB: The points you raised on hospital executives not taking pay cuts, while nurses struggle to get by, are important. The annual Oxfam report was released in January and found that while the incomes of the bottom 99 percent of global society have fallen since the start of the pandemic, the top 10 wealthiest men in the world saw their wealth double, while a new billionaire has been created every 26 hours since the pandemic began. Can you comment on this broader growth of social inequality during the pandemic? How could this money have been put to use to end the pandemic, such as through fully-paid lockdowns?
HP: I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by it, but it was incredible to me that a paid lockdown was seen as a draconian, horrifying measure that had no chance of ever being implemented. No one wants to shut everything down forever. But we could have saved so many lives if we had paid people to stay home for just two or three weeks.
It seems like more people are becoming aware of the social inequality since it has been SO blatant and in some ways inescapable, but I also worry that it is hardening peoples’ hearts. I feel in particular that service industry workers outside of the hospital and support staff in the hospital are being dehumanized and ignored more than ever before. We even had a hospital (not one of mine) in the Baltimore area get in trouble because they vaccinated their board members before any front-line workers.
Although it is difficult to see, I am hopeful that we are also seeing more solidarity among workers of all types, more people vocally questioning things, and more people unionizing or opting out of the system entirely if possible.
But we are seeing the same old tired union-busting tactics that companies have been utilizing forever writ large and applied to other things. For example, many hospital staff of all types would like to speak up more about things like work conditions, burnout, hazard pay, differential standards of pay (i.e., why does a doctor make so much but a janitor so little, when the janitor is probably exposed to more danger on a daily basis), but the threat of losing one’s job for doing so is always there, especially potent when we see people losing their jobs and their houses at such high rates.
EB: Regarding the disconnect between the war-zone-like environment in the hospital and the “return to normalcy” by many people, I think it’s important to understand this politically, as the outcome of relentless propaganda by the corporate media and politicians to push the vaccine-only approach and present the pandemic as being over. What are your thoughts on these deliberate efforts to say we have to “live with the virus,” with some even going so far as to say that everyone getting infected with Omicron would be a positive good?
HP: The efforts of some politicians (and “experts” paid by politicians) to essentially gaslight the public have been infuriating and frustrating. I think in particular it’s been very difficult for parents and immunocompromised individuals (obviously those categories can overlap), who CAN’T “return to normal,” and I think many people don’t realize that not every immunocompromised person is like Bubble Boy, and they don’t view their own lives as expendable or not important.
As far as “living with the virus,” I certainly do not think that everyone should simply get infected or leave themselves completely open to infection, particularly with Long COVID (which politicians rarely refer to as well). There is a way to “learn to live with the virus,” but that means moving forward and finding a new way, keeping some public health measures in place, leaving a lot of the new remote work or education measures in place, etc. It doesn’t mean “scrap every single public health measure and everyone never wear a mask again.”
EB: As a final question, can you comment on how the concept of “endemicity” is now being misused, and your thoughts on the interview we did with Boston University epidemiologist Eleanor Murray on this?
HP: The interview with Dr. Murray says it well—the POLITICAL framing of endemicity has been that “endemic” is essentially a “step down” from pandemic. In public health or immunology, we don’t use endemic that way, and the political connotation that endemic is less “serious” also doesn’t really mean anything in a scientific sense.
A good example of this is malaria, which is endemic to certain regions of the world, but which also causes untold suffering and is a leading cause of death in many of those same areas, especially pediatric death.
So, the framing of endemic as a sort of “junior” pandemic is extremely disingenuous and dangerous. Specificity of language means things. We’ve already been battling a huge disinformation campaign about how vaccines work (i.e., there are MANY MANY existing vaccines that don’t prevent infection but they DO prevent disease, which are DIFFERENT things), and we don’t need to add new layers to that.
I truly think we are doing a huge public disservice when we sort of throw terms around like endemicity and use them to mean whatever we want. I think the level of scientific literacy in this country is shockingly low, but I also don’t think that is because the majority of people are stupid or “don’t believe in science,” it’s just that science and in particular public health are not taught in schools and in general not presented in ways that invite curiosity and learning.
If I had not specifically learned these things in college-level courses, I would also not know them, and it’s not fair that we keep that knowledge behind numerous accessibility barriers and then complain that people don’t know it. But that is a whole other conversation of course!
EB: Thank you for your time and for sharing your thoughts and experiences. You’ve given a real depiction of what conditions are like at present after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Marine Corps is moving fast, but not fast enough to modernize for a potential future war against China, the new deputy commandant for combat development and integration said Wednesday.
The Corps has taken the lead in the Department of Defense in its preparation for a war in the Pacific, with its Force Design 2030 plan released shortly after Gen. David Berger took over as commandant of the Marine Corps in summer 2019.
“If anybody thinks we are moving fast enough, you’re crazy,” Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl said Wednesday at the Marine Corps’ western seaboard West Conference.
“I would say we need to double down our efforts and figure out a way to move quicker,” Heckl said.
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The commandant’s plan sees the Marine Corps getting smaller, lighter and more mobile in order to conduct a distributed fight in the Pacific, with the focus shifting toward how the Marine Corps can support a naval campaign in the region.
Small teams of Marines potentially armed with ship sinking missiles will take up small outposts throughout the Pacific.
The small size will ideally keep them hidden from enemy forces. If the Marines are detected, the increased maneuverability will ideally allow them to leave a position before it is targeted by the potential enemy.
The Marine Corps already has created units that are experimenting with the new formations Marine leaders believe are needed to fight in this way.
“My commandant has stepped off at speed,” Heckl said Wednesday. “We are moving very, very quickly and I assure you there will be no let up on the accelerator.”
In August 2021 the Marine Corps launched a Naval strike missile at U.S. Navy hull, and plans on spending the next two years allowing the 11th Marine Regiment to experiment with the missile and the best way to incorporate it into the fleet.
Heckl said he wants industry to give the Corps more products to the fleet in order to start testing them.
“What I’m looking for is getting certain different capabilities in the hands of the operators and letting them begin to experiment,” Heckl said.
Heckl added that continuing resolutions risk slowing down the progress the Marine Corps is making.
The government has been operating on a series of continuing resolutions, which freeze government speeding at the fiscal year 2021 levels since the new fiscal year started in October.
The current continuing resolution would fund the government through March 11.
“We need stable, predictable funding,” Heckl said.
The general went on to voice his concerns that military development tends to lead to over engineering at the cost of developmental speed.
“If we continue to overengineer, over cost everything and over schedule everything the Chinese are just going to get farther and farther and farther ahead,” Heckl said.
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