Among the entire crew of the American aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, which has been fully tested at Covid-19, three-quarters of positive sailors are asymptomatic, said Friday the number two of the staff, the General John Hyten.
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The epidemic which immobilizes this nuclear aircraft carrier in Guam, and which cost the life of a sailor, allowed the Pentagon to gather a precious database on the impact of the coronavirus on a large military population, said the general. Hyten during a press conference. "There are only 5,000 people but there are 5,000 people of a particular type" , younger and healthier than the general population, he explained.
The proportions of asymptomatic patients mentioned so far vary between 20 and 50%, added the American general who is part of the crisis unit charged by the White House to fight against the spread of the pandemic in the United States. "Now we are 60-70% asymptomatic". In addition, many Roosevelt sailors who tested negative at the end of March subsequently became positive. "So there is a time factor that we have to take into account," he said. Just over 10% of the positives were initially tested negative.
"What we have learned is that those who went from negative to positive always did so within the 14 day period" recommended worldwide to stay in quarantine to protect the healthy population. "What we do know is that about 40 days, individual or in very small groups, followed by a test, will give us the assurance that we have a healthy crew ," he concluded. The Pentagon, which has stopped all movement of its troops around the world, decided to test almost all of its forces as soon as possible to get a better idea of the procedures to be implemented to return to more normal operation, a- he concluded. As of Friday morning, 94% of the crew had been tested at Covid-19. A total of 660 sailors tested positive and 3,920 tested negative for the new coronavirus, which killed more than 150,000 people worldwide, including more than 34,600 in the United States.