Fearing the enemy might target potential weaknesses, the U.S. military is going to stop providing precise coronavirus data of infected troop deployments, Newsweek reported Friday.
"What we want to do is give you aggregated numbers," Defense Secretary Mark Esper told Reuters. "But we're not going to disaggregate numbers, because it could reveal information about where we may be affected at a higher rate than maybe some other places."
The Defense Department has reported 453 confirmed coronavirus cases, service members, civilians, and contractors, of which 227 are troops, according to the report.
"I'm not going to get into a habit where we start providing numbers across all the commands and we come to a point six, seven weeks from now where we have some concerns in some locations and reveal information that could put people at risk," Esper said.
The Pentagon has a reported case and Esper put the Department of Defense into a Health Protection Condition (HPCON) level of Charlie, the second-highest designation on the scale, indicating community spread, according to the report.
"Prepare for the potential of limited access to supplies and services, including severely restricted access to military installations," Army guidance warns.
More of the U.S. military infections are stateside than in deployment overseas, including 85% of the Air Force infections, and potentially as high as 90% of the Navy cases, per the report.
"You have far, far, far greater control of your service members when you're deployed abroad, even when you're stationed abroad, than you do back in the United States," Esper explained.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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