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The aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle anticipates the return to its base in Toulon after some forty cases of coronavirus were declared on board. A military medical team has been transported to the French Navy flagship to monitor the situation and try to determine how the virus shipped. "We have no explanation," military sources have stated.

The Charles de Gaulle last touched down in Brest, on the western tip of Brittany, on March 15. Since then he has not received any visits from abroad.

The mission sent by the Navy Health Service is defined by official sources as an epidemiological team. "Starting today, a detection team with the means to test will arrive on board to investigate the cases that have occurred and prevent the virus from spreading by the ship," said a statement from the Ministry of Defense. Those infected have been placed on "reinforced medical observation".

The isolation situation of a warship in the open sea offers an ideal field to study the spread of Covid-19. Because the mystery will not go beyond locating patient zero of this outbreak and determining the chain of contagion. Already on the ground, in the Hexagon, the figures are still worrying: 22 deaths from coronaviruses per hour (a total of 10,869 deaths). Specifically, 541 have lost their lives today.

The situation at the Charles de Gaulle does not raise any concerns, according to Defense. The crew includes 1,760 people, among which are the twenty that make up the medical team that has a hospitalization room equipped with 12 beds, respiratory devices and a scanner.

A bow area - with a capacity for 127 people - has been isolated to accommodate confined sailors. Military sources have explained to Afp ​​that the area is under negative pressure. This method, already used in the Tonerre helicopter carrier when evacuating patients from Corsica to Marseille, prevents air from circulating to other areas of the ship.

Ramps and handrails have been disinfected, meetings have been reduced in frequency and participants, and masks have been distributed to part of the crew.

The epidemic has already affected another aircraft carrier: the Theodore Roosevelt of the USA . The management of the crisis ended in the dismissal of the commander who requested the immediate evacuation of the ship, now immobilized on the island of Guam, in the Marianas, in the Pacific. The controversy also reached with the secretary of the US Navy, Thomas Modly, who ended up resigning.

The situation at the Charles de Gaulle does not raise any concern for the French Defense Ministry. He is currently sailing at the height of Portugal and finished his mission in Toulon on April 23. He has set sail for this port in south-eastern France, which is the main naval base for the French Navy in the Mediterranean. It should arrive in a week.

The ship has "the full capacity of its means and would have been able to complete its mission. We act under the precautionary principle," its military source told the said agency. "He was back; he's going to shorten it," said the cabinet of Minister Florence Parly .

The Charles de Gaulle left his base on January 21 for the eastern Mediterranean, where he participated in military operations against Islamists in Iraq and Syria . He then sailed across the Atlantic and took part in European naval exercises in the Baltic.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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