Five US sailors have been evacuated with coronavirus from an aircraft carrier despite extensive screening as the warship prepares its return to sea following a major outbreak, a US official confirmed Thursday.
After testing positive but asymptomatic, the five spent two weeks in quarantine in Guam where the nuclear-powered USS Theodore Roosevelt is docked, the official said, confirming a New York Times report.But they were later retested and again found positive.The setback comes with the Roosevelt and its nearly 5,000 crew having spent the last six weeks at the US Navy's base on the Pacific island dealing with the outbreak.
The new positive cases underscored the challenges of testing and the persistence of the virus, which has caused nearly 8,300 infections and 27 deaths among US military personnel and civilian Pentagon employees and their families. The hobbling of one of the Navy's key assets in the Pacific raised questions about the threat of the global spread of coronavirus on US military readiness.
A Pentagon official cautioned that the ship is now much less vulnerable to any new, large outbreaks because of continued testing, regular sterilization, use of masks and compartmentalizing of the crew.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
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