CAMP ZAMA, Japan — Authorities at U.S. military bases across Japan are taking steps to reduce the likelihood that COVID-19 finds its way onto those installations, including stocking up on masks and hand sanitizer.

Rumor control is part of that effort. At a town hall meeting Wednesday evening at Camp Zama, home to U.S. Army Japan headquarters, one man asked whether dependents would be evacuated.

“No,” U.S. Army Japan Major Gen. Viet Xuan Luong told a packed ballroom of service members, civilian employees and their families.

That’s a possibility if the coronavirus outbreak reaches pandemic status “months from now,” he said, but advised the audience not to “worry about that right now.”

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