The Pentagon says there's a coronavirus outbreak on an aircraft carrier getting ready to go to sea

• There has been a coronavirus outbreak aboard the USS Nimitz, senior Pentagon leadership said Thursday, confirming earlier reports.
• "There's been a very small number of breakouts on the Nimitz, and we are watching that very closely before the Nimitz goes out," Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Hyten said after telling reporters the ship "is getting ready to go to sea."
• The news comes as the number of coronavirus cases aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt jumped more than 45% to 416 in one day.
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As US Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt battles a worsening coronavirus outbreak, there has been an outbreak on another carrier preparing to go to sea, the Pentagon revealed Thursday.

"The Nimitz is getting ready to go to sea," Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Hyten said during a Pentagon press briefing.

"There's been a very small number of breakouts on the Nimitz, and we are watching that very closely before the Nimitz goes out," he said. "It's not a huge breakout. It's not a big spike at this point. There's been physical separation of sailors on that ship."

Politico, citing three defense officials, first reported Tuesday that a sailor assigned to the USS Nimitz, currently at port in Bremerton, Washington, tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The sailor was reportedly isolated and removed from the ship.

The news comes as the Navy reports that 416 sailors assigned to the USS Theodore Roosevelt have tested positive for the virus. The service revealed Thursday morning that one sailor who was found unresponsive in isolation has been hospitalized in an intensive care unit.

The number of cases aboard the ship jumped more than 45% from Wednesday to Thursday. Hyten revealed that almost the entire crew has been tested, but the Navy is awaiting 1,164 test results. Among those that tested positive, 187 were symptomatic, while the remainder had no symptoms.

In addition to the USS Theodore Roosevelt and the Nimitz, there have also been cases reported among sailors associated with the USS Ronald Reagan and the USS Carl Vinson, both of which have been in maintenance.

"It's not a good idea to think that the Teddy Roosevelt is a one-of-a-kind issue," Hyten told reporters at the Pentagon Thursday.

"We have too many ships at sea. We have too many deployed capabilities. There's 5,000 sailors on a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. To think that it will never happen again is not a good way to plan."

"What we have to do," he continued, "is we have to figure out how to plan for operations in these kind of COVID environments."

"We have to figure out how this impacts our population," Hyten said. "How do we operate that? How do we quarantine a ship before it goes out? How do we consolidate the ship so we can operate? How do we do that on a nuclear-powered carrier, on a nuclear-powered submarine? How do we do that with our bomber force, our combat arms force? How do we do that with our fighters, our ICBMs? We have to work that across the board."

He said that this will be a new way of doing business for the US military.

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