Why not let the US military fight covid? We could get the military to set up field hospitals (aka big tents) in all 50 states. The US military already has thousands of medics, nurses and doctors. To supplement the enlisted healthcare personnel, the military could hire thousands of civilian healthcare workers as private contractors. Young, healthy civilian nurses and doctors could volunteer to work temporarily for the US military, exclusively treating covid patients, while most civilian healthcare workers continued doing their regular jobs at nursing homes, hospitals, and urgent care facilities. All the young military personnel and the civilian contractors working on fighting covid could live together in purpose-built temporary housing, right at the site of the field hospitals. Fairly quickly, most of the young healthcare workers, both civilian and military, would get exposed to covid. Some wouldn't get it, others would be asymptomatic. Many would get sick. A few would get really sick. But, because they are all young and healthy, 99.99% would fully recover and be able to resume their work in the fight against covid after a 2-week quarantine. And, since the covid warriors would all be living together in communal barracks-style housing arrangements, they wouldn't be going home to infect their families after work. Seems to me like it would be worth a try. To me, it makes more sense to let the regular healthcare system continue focusing on the important job of delivering babies, treating cancer patients, people who have heart attacks, get into car crashes, etc., and then have a literal army of young, healthy nurses, doctors, and medics who are all working full-time only fighting against covid. In addition to manning the field hospitals, military personnel and private contractors could do contact tracing, make sure sick people quarantine, deliver food and pick up and take away rubbish from sick people's houses, bury people who die from covid, and whatever else needed to be done. What do you think? Would it work? Why or why not?...
I think my answer would be: You could do it, but it would cost a lot more than you might think and it probably wouldn't be very effective.
First of all, I am a big supporter of the US Military. It is arguably the finest force in the world at its primary mission, which is basically to kill people and blow stuff up, although it costs a lot of money to do it. In support of its primary mission, the US military does a lot of secondary stuff. For example, it runs a huge logistical operation and things like hospitals, warehouses, motorpools, and post offices.
In general, the military isn't more efficient at delivering these services than a good private sector company, but that's ok because they are usually focused on having the capability of delivering their services in places and circumstances where private sector companies wouldn't go. For example, if the military needs to deliver cargo from the US to Germany, a contracted private sector cargo company will almost certainly be able to do the job for less than the US military. On the other hand, if you want to deliver ammunition to soldiers under fire at night in Afghanistan, US military tactical airlift is going to be the right tool for the job (at a very high cost, obviously).
As you get further away you get from the military's primary missions, it is likely to become less efficient. Our military's medical mission is primarily focused on trauma care and mass casualties (aimed at wounded young soldiers who were previously healthy). Pandemic response and chronic illnesses haven't really been a big focus. The military builds a lot of tent hospitals, but they're mostly surgical wards and recovery areas, not ICUs and isolation wards. It is my understanding this is why the USNS Mercy and USNS Comfort didn't get used much in California and New York --they were never meant to handle a pandemic.
If you ordered the military to build and operate tent hospitals across the USA, they would salute smartly and do their best, but I think you'd be far better off giving civilian hospitals the resources they need to expand their existing facilities to meet demand. The military might have a role to play in providing additional resources in areas where needs can't be met or in taking over other functions so resources can be focused on Covid (as USNS Mercy and Comfort were used).
I think one of the attractions of using the military for our government is not that it is necessarily the most effective tool for the job, but that it is to some degree it is already funded. As they say: When the only tool you have is a hammer, all your problems will start to look like nails.