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PARIS (Reuters) – France’s Minister of the Armed Forces blamed a coronavirus outbreak that infected more than 1,000 sailors through his fleet of Charles de Gaulle aircraft carriers for mistakes made during efforts to counter the spread of the disease .
All but one of the sailors, about two dozen of whom were hospitalized, had fully recovered, Florence Parly told parliament’s defense committee on Monday.
“According to the information we have today, there were errors in the measures taken to combat the coronavirus,” Parly said.
“The investigation shows that the commanders and their medical advisers overestimated the ability of the aircraft carrier and its fleet to deal with the coronavirus.”
He added that investigations did not blame those in command of the carrier group, of which about 1,000 of the 2,300 sailors tested positive for the coronavirus.
The rapid spread of the disease aboard the Charles de Gaulle, a 42-ton warship with more than 1,700 sailors, has raised questions similar to those that arose from an outbreak aboard the US aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt.
Parly said the investigation had shown that the coronavirus arrived between a stopover in Cyprus in late February and a stopover from March 13 to 16 in the port city of Brest in western France, probably after the people were brought in. on board in aerial rotations.
(Reporting by Tangi Salaun; Writing by Benoit Van Overstraeten; Writing by Jon Boyle and Catherine Evans)
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