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.
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.
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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Kevin Knodell reported on the military and veterans for Civil Beat as a corps member for Report For America, a national nonprofit that places journalists in local newsrooms to cover underreported topics.