Ariana News Agency-\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n And that\u2019s not all. Any troops slated to deploy to CENTCOM\u2019s AOR must first stay in quarantine for 14 days \u201cregardless of where they are coming from,\u201d U.S. Central Command said in its statement, \u201cso that [deploying forces] will be cleared for duty upon arrival as a prudent precaution to maintain critical combat and combat support functions.\u201d<\/p>\n This means outbound personnel already in Iraq and Afghanistan \u201cwill be temporarily held on station while their replacements are quarantined\u201d for the two-week period prior to their eventual arrival.<\/p>\n \u201cThe goal is to ensure that units and personnel who arrive in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility are ready for tasking on arrival, and to ensure that we are not quarantining personnel at locations that will be challenged to support,\u201d CENTCOM\u2019s Capt. William Urban told Defense One.<\/p>\n Many troops heading to and from the Middle East pass through the area of responsibility of European Command, which is itself dealing with the pandemic. About 2,600 personnel are now in \u201cself-isolation as a precaution due to travel or other reasons,\u201d the Defense Department said in a statement Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cThese individuals are not necessarily sick, but may have been exposed and are doing their due diligence following health preventative measures.\u201d To date, 35 EUCOM personnel have so far tested positive for COVID-19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" No U.S. forces will move into U.S. Central Command\u2019s area of responsibility \u2014 a region that includes the war zones in Iraq or Afghanistan \u2014 under a 14-day \u201cstop movement\u201d order issued\u00a0 by the U.S. military command.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_mat_hreflang_tags":[],"addvideo":"","video_duration":"","farsit":"","target":"0","top_stories":"0","top":"0"},"categories":[305],"tags":[39,691,114,255],"class_list":["post-5077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","tag-afghanistan","tag-cronavirus","tag-iraq","tag-us-forces"],"acf":{"myctype":"change","target":false,"top_stories":false,"top":false,"farsit":""},"yoast_head":"\n