South Korea and the US decided to scale back the annual joint military drills scheduled to begin within the next several days, as the COVID-19 outbreak in Korea affected their military operations, CNN reported, quoting three US officials.

The two allies were set to take part in the command post exercises that begins March 9. The exercises test the combat readiness of top commanders and senior staff of both sides in computer-based war games against North Korea. Seoul and Washington have held them since the 1950-53 Korean War armistice.

On Monday, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said that scaling back was the drills wan an option but it would not impact the readiness of the joint forces. “I’m sure that we’ll remain fully ready to deal with any threats that we might face together,” he said at a Pentagon press conference alongside the Korean defense minister.

But the US could weaken its capability to perform highly coordinated and synchronized operations with Korea if the joint drills are cut back as they were in August 2018, those US officials told CNN.

On Wednesday, a US Forces Korea soldier stationed at Camp Carroll in North Gyeongsang Province near Daegu tested positive for COVID-19. He was the first US service member to contract the virus, after a widow of a former service member was found to be infected a day earlier.

The 23-year-old patient, now in self-quarantine off the base, had visited Camp Walker, one of three American installations in Daegu that the widow also visited before testing positive for the virus.

The Korean military reported a total of 18 COVID-19 cases and quarantined over 9,200 personnel as of press time. The country reported 1,100 infections with 12 deaths.

By Choi Si-young (siyoungchoi@heraldcorp.com)