Following the announcement that the Department of Defense awarded a contract for a COVID-19 contact tracing service;

Nicolas Jouan, Aerospace and Defense Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view on the award:

“The Department of Defense (DoD) is committed to fight the spread of COVID-19 on its own ground with the award of an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract of up to US$10m to Chenega Healthcare Services, a Texas-based healthcare staffing support specialist. The contract was awarded by the Washington Headquarters Services, in other words the Pentagon itself. Chenega will work with the DoD to develop a contact tracing service for the headquarters’ support personnel based in Arlington, Virginia, representing more than 3,000 non-military staff.

“It is interesting to see the DoD awarding contracts to prevent and control the spread of COVID-19 on its own turf. Like any other organisation, the Pentagon is confronted to the problematic of social distancing as its Washington headquarter is one of the most densely populated governmental building with almost 30,000 staff commuting on any normal working day. Stay-at-home orders for non-essential workers have already created delays in the early defense planning process of fiscal year 2022, according to DoD officials. More investments in healthcare support are therefore to be expected in future contract awards.”