There are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 among U.S. nuclear forces, and fewer than 50 people supporting that interservice group are self-quarantining because of possible exposure during the global pandemic, the head of U.S. Strategic Command said Tuesday.
“[W]e have zero people in STRATCOM headquarters or in the components that have tested positive, so I have no cases of COVID right now,” Adm. Charles Richard said at the Pentagon during a briefing with reporters. “[T]o this point, we have had no impact to our ability to accomplish our mission.”
That includes transferring custody of nuclear weapons to and from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the branch of the civilian Department of Energy responsible for servicing and modernizing the nuclear arsenal.
“Operationally we have not had a need to modify anything, so our operations continue normally,” Richard said when asked about military interactions with the NNSA. Administratively, however, “there have been some meetings that have been canceled where we’re doing them over VTC (video teleconferencing) right now.”
A Strategic Command spokesperson later said that, as of Tuesday, the services foresee no additional delays to ongoing and planned nuclear-arsenal modernization programs because of COVID-19.
“We are confident the services, along with industry partners, are able to keep production related to modernization of our nuclear forces on track, while taking appropriate precautions to keep their workforces safe and healthy,” the spokesperson said.
On-time modernization of U.S. nuclear forces hinges on both NNSA-funded weapons programs and Pentagon-funded construction of new delivery vehicles and carriers going off without a hitch. The NNSA already has bottlenecks looming as it races to fix problems with components for a bomb and warhead already in the modernization pipeline. The Pentagon wants to deploy new nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines and aircraft-delivered weapons all beginning in the early 2030s.
About 10 people at STRATCOM headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska who have gone into self-quarantine after possible exposure to COVID-19, while the Air Force and Navy have “less than 20 [cases] each” of self-quarantine among personnel commanded by STRATCOM.
Richard told reporters to seek answers from the Air Force and the Navy as to why those personnel were in quarantine. STRATCOM headquarters personnel could be quarantined if they were “coming back off of travel or something like that, where you wanted to just be, in an abundance of caution, making sure that you gave them a chance to see if they would go symptomatic.”
COVID-19 is the viral disease caused by the novel coronavirus that broke out in Wuhan, China, in 2019. It is distinct from influenza, but shares many symptoms with that disease: fever and respiratory distress, such as coughing and shortness of breath. There is not yet a vaccine for COVID-19, and the rapid spread of the disease is disrupting normal life across the globe.
There are nearly 6,500 confirmed cases in the U.S., and more than 100 deaths attributed to the disease domestically, most of which are among elderly people in Washington state.
