US Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced that he has issued a travel ban order stopping all movement of US forces abroad for up to 60 days in an effort to limit the spread of the Coronavirus among the military personnel.
In the interview with Reuters, Esper added that the decision involves all American forces and civilians from their families, but he made clear that there would be some exceptions.
“The purpose is to make sure that we’re not bringing the virus back home, infecting others, that we’re not spreading it around the military,” Esper said.
According to Reuters, the measure is by far the most sweeping to date and will affect forces around the world. Esper said one exception to the order would be the drawdown under way in Afghanistan, which will continue.
The United States is committed to reducing the number of its soldiers in Afghanistan to 8,600 within 135 days of signing the agreement it struck with the Taliban last month.
So far, Department of Defense announced that it had detected 53 new cases of Coronavirus among US forces on Wednesday, bringing the total number to 227.
Across the United States, more then 60 thousand cases of infections have been reported, where about 900 death had occurred because of the virus.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that months before the coronavirus pandemic began, the Trump administration eliminated a key American public health position in Beijing intended to help detect disease outbreaks in China, Reuters has learned.
The American disease expert, a medical epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency, left her post in July, according to four sources with knowledge of the issue. The first cases of the new coronavirus may have emerged as early as November
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