The Joint Chiefs chairman is double-vaccinated and boosted, the Pentagon said.
General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has tested positive for Covid-19 and is working remotely, the Pentagon has announced. One other member of the Joint Chiefs is positive, but the military did not say who.
Milley tested positive on Sunday and is “experiencing very minor symptoms and can perform all of his duties from the remote location,” Joint Staff spokesman Colonel Dave Butler said in a statement on Monday.
The general “received the Covid-19 vaccines including the booster,” Butler added. All other Joint Chiefs tested negative except for one, but he would not say who it was.
Milley’s last public event was last week’s funeral of retired general, Raymond Odierno, at Arlington National Cemetery, where he was in contact with President Joe Biden.
“He tested negative several days prior to and every day following contact with the president until yesterday,” Butler said.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had tested positive for Covid-19 on January 2 and also worked from home for several days, returning to the Pentagon last week.
Austin insisted at the time that being fully vaccinated and boosted “rendered the infection much more mild than it would otherwise have been,” and that he would not back away from the vaccine mandate for the US military. “The vaccines work and will remain a military medical requirement for our workforce.”
