Police are breaking up "coronavirus parties" in New Jersey, authorities are hunting down a Florida pastor for violating a 'health order' to not hold services, state troopers are enforcing quarantine orders along the Louisiana-Texas border, and yet it's business as usual for US military recruiting even as calls grow to close boot camps across the United States, especially at hard-hit coronavirus hot spots on the East and West coasts.

"Marine recruiters in the state hit hardest by the novel coronavirus have grave warnings about the military's decision to continue sending young men and women off to boot camp in the middle of a global pandemic," reports Military.com. "Marines at New York recruiting stations say it's only a matter of time before COVID-19, the serious illness caused by the coronavirus, sweeps through one of the service's two entry-level training depots."

Efforts have been implemented at Army and Marine recruiting offices to do remote virtual initial recruiting interviews; however, boot camp training grounds which see thousands of young future Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, and Airmen conduct drills and exercises in close quarters - also sleeping in close quarter barracks - have taken no initiative to halt or alter training. Crowded chow halls and dining facilities are also potential places of rapid outbreak.

Top Pentagon brass has said keeping entry-level recruit training operational is essential to national security, as Military.com notes based on a DoD policy ruling:

The Pentagon has decided that keeping all the services' entry-level training camps up and running is critical to national security. The decision was reportedly at odds with what some service leaders recommended: a temporary pause on recruit shipping until the threat of the coronavirus lessened.

Defense Department officials overrode the recommendations from senior military leaders to halt training for 30 days, The Washington Post reported March 16.