Potential US military recruits will need a special medical waiver to join the armed forces if they have been hospitalized for coronavirus, a Pentagon official said Thursday.

The US military will consider potential recruits who have been hospitalized for the virus to be "medically disqualified," the official said.

Their case would then be subject to a review of their hospital records and would require a medical waiver by the service branch they are seeking to join, the official said.

Recruits with asthma or tuberculosis are subject to the same conditions.

The need for a special waiver only applies to recruits who have been hospitalized for coronavirus, not those who were confirmed to have the virus.

Those individuals would be allowed to begin the process of joining a service branch after 28 days of home isolation.

The Pentagon said that as of Thursday, there have been 5,086 cases of COVID-19 in the military and two deaths. A total of 113 service members have been hospitalized.

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