Couple at Lewis-McChord military base in Washington test positive for coronavirus
A service member and their spouse at Joint Base Lewis-McChord have tested positive for the coronavirus and are in quarantine off-base, the Washington military base confirmed Tuesday.
The service member “was feeling ill and immediately self-quarantined” on Friday, base spokesman Joe Piek told McClatchy. Neither the service member nor the spouse were identified.
The base initiated a tracing team and identified 12 individuals who had contact with the service member. Those individuals are now also quarantined and are being monitored, the base said in a statement posted to its Facebook page.
The spouse tested for the virus off-base on Friday and test results came back presumptive positive on Saturday. The service member’s test came back presumptive positive on Monday, the base said in the statement.
The couple lives in off-base housing, and the spouse had not been on base “for several months,” the statement said.
The service member had not recently been deployed, Piek said.
According to the most recent data available, Washington state has 162 confirmed cases and 22 deaths linked to the coronavirus.
Joint Base Lewis-McChord is an Army and Air Force base in Pierce County and is among the largest employers in Washington state.
More than 40,000 active and reserve military service members are stationed there, and another 14,000 civilians work at the base.
The Pentagon told reporters Tuesday that it was tracking three coronavirus cases of active duty service members, not including the positive tests at Lewis-McChord. Four military dependents, such as children or spouses, and one defense contractor have also been diagnosed with COVID-19. Several others are being monitored and have undergone initial tests for the virus.
Joint Staff Surgeon Air Force Brig. Gen. Paul Friedrichs said 147 tests have been conducted on military personnel, but acknowledged that those numbers only included tests conducted at Defense Department labs..
“The three active duty I am tracking, which is a report I got about 3 o’clock this morning, did not include anyone from Joint Base Lewis-McChord,” Friedrichs said. “So I would caution everybody, these numbers are going to change.”
He also said there could be more personnel carrying the virus who have not shown symptoms.
“We are still learning how easy it is to spread this, and how many people could be able to spread the virus before they actually have symptoms ,” Friedrichs said. “So is it possible that there are more people infected than what these numbers represent? Yes, absolutely.”
Updates with more details from Pentagon media briefing.
This story was originally published March 10, 2020 at 10:03 AM with the headline "Couple at Lewis-McChord military base in Washington test positive for coronavirus."
