{"doi":"10.1093/ofid/ofaa654","title":"SARS-CoV-2 Infections and Serologic Responses Among Military Personnel Deployed on the USNS COMFORT to New York City During the COVID-19 Pandemic","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) presents a unique challenge to United States Navy hospital ships. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection among US Navy personnel deployed on the USNS COMFORT to augment the inpatient health care capacity in New York City. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study conducted on USNS COMFORT crewmembers returning to Norfolk, Virginia, following deployment. Participants completed an electronic questionnaire and provided a serum sample at Day 14 post-deployment. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) results from testing of symptomatic crewmembers during deployment and Day 0 and Day 14 post-deployment screening swabs conducted on all crewmembers, per military order, were abstracted. SARS-CoV-2 infection was defined as a positive SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein immunoglobulin G antibody or PCR result. RESULTS: Of the ship's total complement of 1200 crewmembers, 450 were enrolled: 432 (96.0%) completed the questionnaire and provided a serum sample. The median age of participants (interquartile range) was 30 (24-39) years, 50.8% were female, 58.6% were White, and 14.0% were Black; 80.1% had a clinical role during deployment. The cumulative prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection was 3.01% (13/432; 95% CI, 1.61%-5.09%). Twelve of 13 infections occurred in health care providers, and 8 of 13 were asymptomatic. The antibody profile of infected crewmembers varied by suspected timing of infection. CONCLUSIONS: We observed a low prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection among USNS COMFORT crewmembers despite the inherent risk of a shipboard deployment to an area with high rates of community transmission. Our findings suggest that early infection control measures mitigated the spread of SARS-CoV-2 among crewmembers.","journal":"Open Forum Infectious Diseases","year":2021,"id":178093,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":19,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9016,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":723817,"name":"Tida K Lee","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":533696,"name":"Eric D. Laing","orcid":"0000-0002-5574-2584","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":723818,"name":"Andrew Ritter","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":723202,"name":"Elizabeth Cooper","orcid":"0000-0001-8993-7067","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":723203,"name":"Melissa Lee","orcid":"0000-0003-4023-4891","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":723204,"name":"Matthew Baker","orcid":"0000-0001-7974-3365","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":723819,"name":"Tyler Baldino","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":723820,"name":"Terrance Mcadoo","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":558486,"name":"Shreshta Phogat","orcid":null,"position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":558487,"name":"E Samuels","orcid":null,"position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":723205,"name":"Huy C Nguyen","orcid":"0009-0005-2623-6956","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":533697,"name":"Christopher C. Broder","orcid":"0000-0001-5382-0510","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":557984,"name":"Nusrat J Epsi","orcid":"0000-0001-5363-075X","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":536243,"name":"Stephanie A Richard","orcid":"0000-0002-0530-384X","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":690049,"name":"Tyler Warkentien","orcid":null,"position":15,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":272088,"name":"Eugene V. Millar","orcid":"0000-0002-2019-6480","position":16,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":103453,"name":"Timothy Burgess","orcid":"0000-0003-1247-8370","position":17,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":514705,"name":"Karl Kronmann","orcid":"0000-0003-1783-7061","position":18,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":426930,"name":"Tahaniyat Lalani","orcid":"0000-0002-9361-2991","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":17,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:47:36.112170Z","pmid":"33553482","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}