Pentagon leaders anticipate that the coronavirus is likely to strike more Navy ships at sea after an outbreak aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific infected more than 400 sailors, a top general said on Thursday.
General John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said one member of the crew of the USS Theodore Roosevelt was hospitalised on Thursday in intensive care on Guam, where the carrier has been docked for more than a week.
He said 416 crew members are now infected and that 1,164 test results are pending.
"It's not a good idea to think that the Teddy Roosevelt is a one-of-a-kind issue," Hyten told a Pentagon news conference. "We have too many ships at sea. ... To think that it will never happen again is not a good way to plan."
"There's been a very small number of breakouts on the Nimitz, and we're watching that very closely before the Nimitz goes out," he said. "But it's not a huge breakout, it's not a big spike at this point."
"We're adjusting to that new world as we speak today."
"We're going to need to change and adapt because even over the coming months, the virus isn't going to go away," Norquist said. "We're going to have to be able to operate in a COVID environment."