A US Navy warship has paused its deployment to South America because of a COVID-19 outbreak, the navy said on Friday.
The USS Milwaukee, a litorral combat ship, is staying in port at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, where it had stopped for a scheduled port visit.
It began its deployment from Mayport, Florida, on Tuesday last week and was heading into the US Southern Command region.
Photo: AP
The navy said in a statement that the ship’s crew is “100% immunized” and that all of those who tested positive for COVID-19 have been isolated on the ship away from other crew members.
The number of crew testing positive was not disclosed.
The ship has a crew of a little more than 100.
The navy said that “a portion” of those who tested positive for the virus are having mild symptoms, and that the involved variant of SARS-CoV-2 is not yet known.
COVID-19 cases have surged across the US as a result of the highly contagious Omicron variant.
“The ship is following an aggressive mitigation strategy in accordance with Navy and CDC guidelines,” the Navy said, referring to the US Centers for Disease Control.
The first major military outbreak of the virus was early last year on a navy warship, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, an aircraft carrier that was operating in the Pacific.
The Roosevelt was sidelined in Guam for nearly two months, and more than 1,000 of the 4,800 crew members tested positive.
One sailor died, and the entire crew went through weeks of quarantine in a rotation that kept enough sailors on the ship to keep it safe and running.
More than 98 percent of all active duty sailors are fully vaccinated, navy data shows.
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