The official said the guide was put in place because there is a poor understanding of the “long-term” effects of the virus and there is concern that potential recruits who have been hospitalized may need further medical evaluation. .
The new policy is being finalized to establish medical restrictions for recruits who may have tested positive or who have been treated for Covid-19. Department of Defense medical waivers are required for a wide variety of medical conditions ranging from heart disease to vision loss.
Months in the pandemic, the virus is posing major medical challenges to the military on multiple fronts.
There is a particular concern that enough recruits will be able to join before a rigorous enough testing regimen is in place to ensure that they are healthy enough to start training.
It is a priority for military personnel who live and operate at close range, and particularly for sailors on ships at sea for months. The Pentagon recognizes that it is critical to ensure that virus tests are accurate enough to allow units to deploy safely.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper told the Pentagon Tuesday that the department will randomly test groups of people “to figure out how many asymptomatic or wearers there are perhaps out there.”
The focus is on trying to understand how much of the force can be asymptomatic but still have the virus.
“One of the challenges we know about is asymptomatic transmission of the disease. It’s something we’ve known for some time, but what we haven’t really appreciated until TR has been the fact that we are experiencing very high rates in the military. “Esper said during an online Brookings Institution event on Monday.
The Navy calculates asymptomatic rates between Roosevelt’s crew may have initially reached 60% or more. Seventeen sailors who had tested negative while being kidnapped off the ship for 14 days are now being tested again after three of them tested positive even if they had no symptoms, according to a naval officer.
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