DOD Updates Coronavirus Situation, Guidance
Air Force Brig. Gen. (Dr.) Paul Friedrichs, the Joint Staff surgeon, and Robert G. Salesses, deputy assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense integration stressed the department is still laser-focused on three aspects: protecting service members and their families, ensuring crucial DOD missions continue and supporting the whole of government approach to the situation.
DOD is supporting the situation with the ocean liner Grand Princess docking on Oakland, California, with several people aboard having contracted the virus. DOD will provide four bases — Travis Air Force Base, California, Lackland Air Force Base, Texas; Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, California and Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Georgia — that will allow the Department of Health and Human Affairs to quarantine the passengers for 14 days, Salesses said.
Friedrichs said that right now the “the immediate risk to our force remains low.”
There have been a handful of cases in DOD around the world. “No one is seriously ill at this point and everyone has been diagnosed is being appropriately treated, getting the care that they need,” the doctor said. “So we have implemented a number of measures in order to make sure that people are appropriately identified and treated.”
As of this morning, there are seven people that officials suspect may have the virus and they are in the process of being tested. There are two more active duty personnel who are presumptive positives, Friedrichs said. This occurs when the first test is positive and officials are waiting for the results of a second test. Finally, there is an active duty service member in Korea who is unquestionably positive.
IL
St. Louis-area woman tests positive for coronavirus after flying into O’Hare and taking Amtrak train home
By Katherine Rosenberg-Douglas and Kate Thayer
Chicago Tribune |
Mar 09, 2020 | 4:30 PM
Health officials in Illinois and Missouri are trying to track down people who came in close contact with a St. Louis-area woman who tested positive for the coronavirus after flying into O’Hare International Airport, staying with a friend here, then taking an Amtrak train to her home last week.
The woman, in her 20s, flew into O’Hare on Monday and took an Amtrak train to St. Louis on Wednesday, according to Missouri and St. Louis County officials. Officials did not say where she stayed in the Chicago area, or how she got to Union Station to board the Amtrak 303 train.
On the bright side for the military, none of those who transported or processed the Wuhan airlifts, or the DP airlifts, have tested positive to date.