Crowded living quarters are ideal for spreading a respiratory virus — and in March 2020, communities across the country restricted large gatherings for that reason. Air Force Basic Military Training (BMT) at Joint Base San Antonio–Lackland in Texas could not simply stop. This CDC report describes how it kept training going through the first seven weeks of the pandemic, March 1 to April 18, 2020.
A high-risk setting
About 40,000 new airmen train at the base each year, roughly 800 arriving each week — about 75% men, mostly in their late teens or early twenties, prescreened and generally healthy. Recruits train in flights of 50 that live in open-bay quarters and do everything together; for safety, no trainee is ever alone. Past outbreaks, such as adenovirus in 2007, had already brought head-to-toe bunks, regular cleaning of shared equipment and surveillance for respiratory illness.
The measures
| Date (2020) | Step |
|---|---|
| March 11 | base access limited to essential personnel; graduation ceremonies closed to families |
| March 13 | training instructors restricted from travel outside the local area |
| March 16 | testing opened to anyone with symptoms, with no exposure requirement |
| March 17 | every new recruit placed in a two-week arrival quarantine, apart from other trainees; 6-foot distancing for all |
| March 23 | after the first case, training shortened from 8.5 to 7 weeks |
| April 6 | cloth face coverings for everyone |
| April | recruits no longer taken from high-transmission areas, cutting arrivals by about 40% |
Instructors screened every trainee on arrival; anyone flagged was assessed by medical staff, tested on base, and isolated in a single room — rooms set up earlier to quarantine cruise ship passengers. Trainees could return at least 7 days after symptoms began and 3 days without fever.
Results
Of 10,579 trainees during the period, 345 (3%) met criteria for testing, and five tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Testing also found other viruses: rhinovirus or enterovirus, parainfluenza, metapneumovirus and influenza B.
- Patient A arrived March 17, fell ill five days later and tested positive on March 23 — with no known source, possibly infected in transit.
- Patients B, C and D, his contacts, became ill on March 25, 27 and 30.
- Patient E arrived March 25 already ill, after visiting a large city with community spread.
All five were men, none needed hospitalization, and all were caught during arrival quarantine — no cases appeared in the main training population. That works out to 47 per 100,000 trainees, below the U.S. rate at the time (220 per 100,000) and far below rates reported in homeless shelters (17,000–66,000 per 100,000).
Trainees tested and testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory viruses. Image from CDC’s report.
Why it worked
Measures started before the first case; non-medical staff helped with screening; training staff adapted schedules; and the base reused its cruise-ship quarantine facilities. A disciplined, well-resourced setting and a young, healthy population likely helped.
Limits: results from a structured military base may not transfer elsewhere, and symptom screening misses people without symptoms — though with no cases found after quarantine, spread by asymptomatic trainees seems unlikely.
Sources
Based on Marcus JE, Frankel DN, Pawlak MT, et al., "COVID-19 Monitoring and Response Among U.S. Air Force Basic Military Trainees — Texas, March–April 2020," MMWR Vol. 69, No. 22, CDC; a work of the United States government in the public domain.
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.cdc.gov
1
0
0
0
Comments
