The Navy now has the most cases of coronavirus among the services.
This week, Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly announced the Navy now has 104 cases of COVID-19, not counting families and contractors. Together, the Navy and Marines have one-third of all the active-duty cases in the U.S. military, he said.
In a Pentagon briefing, Modly wouldn't speculate on the reason.
“I will say our forces are all over the world. All the time. We also have big fleet concentration areas such as San Diego and Norfolk and other areas where we have a lot of people that are together but that’s all speculation. We haven’t done the forensics yet,” he said.
The USS Roosevelt has at least 23 confirmed cases of the virus. The San Diego-based aircraft carrier is in Guam while the Navy tests all 5,000 sailors aboard, after a port visit in Vietnam.
The Navy has announced several other cases of sailors assigned to San Diego-based ships testing positive. They were all onshore, in San Diego, when they were diagnosed. More test kits are being sent to other ships in the fleet. With the spike in cases, both the Navy and Marines are becoming more aggressive in canceling training events.
New recruits are screened on arrival at Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. Two East Coast recruits have tested positive. An exercise scheduled in early April at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms was canceled, said Gen. David H. Berger, commandant of the Marine Corps.
The entire U.S. military is now at Health Protection Charlie, one level below the highest level. The Secretary of Defense also placed further restrictions on travel in order to prevent the spread of the virus.
