Ontario and Quebec are calling in the army to help confront the hot zones of COVID-19.

Quebec Premier François Legault and Ontario Premier Doug Ford appealed to Ottawa on Wednesday for teams of military personnel to assist with the outbreak of the virus in long-term care homes, which have emerged as especially deadly sites in this pandemic.

“Every set of boots on the ground will make a difference in this fight,” Ford said as he made a formal request to the federal government for help from the Canadian Armed Forces at five nursing homes hit hard by COVID-19.

The move, which comes a week after Ford declared the new coronavirus was speeding through long-term care like a “wildfire,” would see troops help with staffing relief, medical care and daily operations amid staff shortages.

There have been at least 447 deaths in Ontario nursing homes and the virus has taken deeper hold in recent weeks, easily spreading in the congregate living facilities. About 2,000 residents have been infected and expanded testing is expected to find more.

“As we need more resources we’re bringing more resources in,” he added, noting long-term care “is where the crisis is.”

Front-line workers in nursing homes are working extra days and long hours, he said. “They need a rest and they need support.”

Ontario’s Long-Term Care Minister Merrilee Fullerton repeatedly refused to name the five homes where troops could be sent.

“That military assistance will go to the homes that are in the greatest need,” she told reporters.

There are outbreaks in at least 128 nursing homes, with several experiencing more than two dozen deaths and large numbers of new cases.

Ford did not specify how many troops or public health experts he would like to deploy but said they would form a “small part” of the provincial response. Chief medical officer Dr. David Williams later said Ontario officials have their eye on five teams of about 50 armed forces members each, generally led by a nurse with medics and troops.

“We’re going to have to wait to see how that rolls out in discussions with the Canadian Armed Forces and the federal government,” Williams said.

Ontario’s request is an indication an online health staffing portal has failed to find enough health-care workers to bolster the ranks in nursing homes, where almost 1,000 staff have taken ill with COVID-19 to date and many are off in self-isolation.

In Quebec, Legault painted a picture of long-term-care homes that are short staffed and struggling to cope with the virus. He said the province — which has already summoned the military to help in one home — has tried to deal with the staffing shortage but has come up short, prompting another call for military personnel to fill the gaps.

“These are not people who have medical training… it’s not an ideal situation but at the time I think it will help us out a lot to be able to have additional hands …to help out the staff,” Legault told a news conference.

It was not immediately clear if the federal government would grant the requests and whether it has the capacity to supply the assistance from the armed forces as well as the Public Health Agency of Canada.

The defence department referred questions to the department of public safety, which is responsible for co-ordinating such requests. “We are working closely with Quebec and Ontario as they identify their specific needs. We will carefully review their requests upon reception and determine next steps,” a spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said in an email.

Meanwhile, the military is assisting the RCMP investigation into the mass shooting in Nova Scotia over the weekend. The military is providing personnel, modular tents, lights, tables, chairs and generators to a number of locations, according to a Canadian Press report.

Former commanders say the military offers a talented, disciplined force of personnel that can provide key assistance in the pandemic. But they caution that the skill set likely to be in most demand — doctors, nurses and medical staff — is finite.

“The real area of expertise is clearly our medical corps but they are a high demand, low-capacity resource and much of it is needed for provision of day-to-day (medical) support to the military itself. Nonetheless there is capacity,” said Michael Day, a retired lieutenant-general and former commander of the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command.

He said the military — which has competed with the civilian sector for medical personnel — has the capacity to provide such assistance but not in large numbers.

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“Additional services would be of a more general nature. If the view is to try to free up some med support in these places, the military can provide basic capacity for food delivery, monitoring as a trigger for greater med support,” Day said in an email exchange with the Star.

Day noted too that the military has some experience in contagion protocols after a deployment to Sierra Leone in 2015 to assist with the Ebola outbreak.

“My sense is that the CAF is keen to play a role and will look for ways to bring value. It provides a disciplined well-structured workforce than can comfortably and easily adapt to new tasks with great agility,” he said.

Gen. Jonathan Vance, the chief of defence staff, has said that some 24,000 troops have been put on standby to respond to requests from civilian authorities. That includes some 500 troops at CFB Borden able to respond to requests in Ontario.

Retired Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie said the military was smart to take steps early on to protect personnel against catching the virus, ensuring its ranks would be ready.

“They are ready to respond when the moment is right,” said Leslie, former commander of the Canadian Army.

Leslie cautioned as well that the military’s ability to provide medical personnel is limited and is focused on tending to those in uniform with little spare capacity, perhaps just 400 medical personnel nationwide that could be free to respond to civilian requests.

“The medical system of the Canadian Forces is designed to take care of the Canadian Forces. They are there to take care of the Canadian Forces’ people when they get sick or injured,” he said in an interview.

“The last thing you want is to send a 2,000-person task force somewhere and have it be a burden on the local medical system,” said Leslie, a former Liberal MP who served as chief government whip and now is a senior associate with Bluesky Strategy Group, a public affairs firm.

Leslie said the requests from the two provinces will be co-ordinated by the department of public safety but the decisions on the actual deployments will fall to Vance in conjunction with Lt.-Gen. Mike Rouleau, who heads the Canadian Joint Operations Command, which oversees military operations.

He said the commanders have to carefully weigh each request, knowing that committing troops will likely require a 14-day quarantine at the end of their task before they can deploy again.

“They should not be committed for a long period of time. I would see a maximum of a couple of weeks to sort things out, then hand it over to civilians who should be paid appropriately and trained appropriately to fill in,” he said.

“That’s what the Armed Forces is. They are the national strategic reserve, after them, there’s nothing,” Leslie said.

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