Seven Hawaii National Guardsmen have tested positive after returning from a deployment to Washington, D.C. to help provide security for the Jan. 20 inauguration of President Joe Biden, the military said Thursday.

All the guardsmen who participated in the mission were tested for COVID-19 upon arrival back to Honolulu.

They flew home on four different military flights, which landed over the weekend and on Tuesday, according to a press release from the Hawaii National Guard.

“The seven that are positive remain in isolation and are asymptomatic,” said the press release. The guardsmen who tested negative will still be required to complete a 14-day quarantine, it added.

Seven Hawaii National Guardsmen tested positive after returning from a deployment to provide security for President Joe Biden’s inauguration. Nick Grube/Civil Beat/2021

About 200 Hawaii guardsmen deployed alongside troops from across the country after a mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol in hopes of overturning the results of the 2020 election.

During the guardsmen’s deployment, there were more than five times more troops in D.C. than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Some of the Hawaii guardsmen on the mission had been deployed to Afghanistan less than a year ago.

The National Guard has notified the Hawaii Department of Health about the test results and is conducting contact tracing.

Under Trump, the Pentagon ordered military commanders in Hawaii not to publicly share information about military infections numbers, but the military has worked with the DOH and its numbers are included in state totals.

Earlier this month, the Hawaii National Guard began vaccinating members of the force actively assisting with pandemic response operations across the islands. In November a 53-year-old Hawaii Guardsmen whose name has not been released to the public died from the respiratory disease.

 

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