The US Navy Can, and Should, Do More Against the Coronavirus

By CMDR. Kevin Chlan
3/26/20

The nation will soon need far more hospital beds and medical capacity than it has — just how much more depends on how well our collective social distancing efforts work. U.S. Navy officials announced last week that they will send two hospital ships to provide relief to U.S. medical facilities that will soon be overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The USNS Comfort will assist New York City, while the USNS Mercy will head to Los Angeles. Each of these massive floating hospitals brings roughly 1,000 beds, 12 operating rooms, a pharmacy, and a sizable medical laboratory. They will not be used to treat coronavirus patients, but to provide other types of care in order to ease the rising burden on shore-side hospitals. Yet the hospital ships are not the only way the Navy can, and should help. In addition to the hospital ships, leaders should consider putting aircraft carriers and other large amphibious vessels to this use. Combining mobility, versatility, and capacity with a ready and capable workforce, these ships have historically proven invaluable during times of unexpected crisis and are well suited for rapid, flexible response. Throughout my 20-year naval career, I’ve witnessed the aircraft carrier quickly adapt to perform a variety of missions without notice or preparation. When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, the Navy responded with 34 vessels for 42 days. During Operation Tomodachi following the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear crisis in Japan, the Navy provided 24 ships for 54 days. Each of these crises – and many others – required an adaptive and flexible response.

The Navy has called upon the brave men and women aboard aircraft carriers and other large vessels extensively to conduct unexpected humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, or HADR, around the globe. Rather than exposing the crews to the risk of infectious disease aboard a ship, the Navy currently plans to use the Comfort and Mercy for their trauma care capability and large capacity to ease the medical burden on hospitals treating COVID-19 patients. Aircraft carriers and large deck amphibious ships are well suited to do the same. With a crew of more than 6,000 sailors – including six medical officers, one operating room, three ICU beds, 52 ward beds, a medical laboratory, and a pharmacy – aircraft carriers are already configured to provide outstanding medical support for war-fighting. Fixed-wing aircraft and personnel assigned to the air wing – slightly under a third of the total manning on an aircraft carrier – would not be required to support this mission, so they could be left at home, freeing up berthing and space for medical personnel, equipment, and additional helicopters. The time to ask whether or not the Navy is prepared for a war such as this is over. The time to adapt and respond is now. Leaders must learn from the unfolding crisis in Italy, understand the projections, and recognize the impending tidal wave of demand that our medical facilities will face in the coming weeks and months. While our nation’s medical staff, social workers, and first responders are on the front lines, the Navy needs to figure out how it can get in the fight. I am confident that our sailors and Marines will answer the call — a call that their leaders should issue promptly.

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Rogue Valley said:

The US Navy Can, and Should, Do More Against the Coronavirus

Aircraft carriers and big-deck amphibious ships can help — as they have often done in humanitarian-relief efforts overseas.

I agree. We should be positioning military assets to our best advantage in what will be a profoundly deadly and mournful war against the novel coronavirus.

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Aircraft carriers and large deck amphibious ships are well suited to do the same. With a crew of more than 6,000 sailors – including six medical officers, one operating room, three ICU beds, 52 ward beds, a medical laboratory, and a pharmacy

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Rogue Valley said:

The US Navy Can, and Should, Do More Against the Coronavirus

I agree. We should be positioning military assets to our best advantage in what will be a profoundly deadly and mournful war against the novel coronavirus.

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Oozlefinch said:

And now, a discussion of what those ships do when they go on those missions.

Now most important are the amphibious ships. We have used them all over the world to respond to disasters, and even inside the US after Katrina and other hurricanes.

But here is the huge difference. Those ships have all of the equipment to support a Battalion to Brigade sized unit on the ground. Tents, cots, dining and medical equipment to support that unit for 90 days. And they go to places that were wiped out by a natural disaster. And those are often the first hospitals set up because all the ones that were there before are gone.

That is not the case here. SO what exactly would be the use for hundreds of tents, vehicles, water purification systems, and the like?

Ships like the CVN and others also are pressed into service as both for their power plants and water purification systems. Also critical infrastructure that is damaged or destroyed in the event of a natural disaster. Where exactly in the US has that happened?

We have absolutely no reason to tap into those resources, and we should not do so. We can already do a lot just with the equipment we already have on the ground here. In fact, we could set up thousands of field hospitals with all the equipment we have in storage. But what we are lacking is the personnel to run and support them.

My current unit is being recalled next week, and my last unit is being recalled also (352 Combat Support Hospital). But how effective we would be, I have no idea.

Take a CSH ("CASH" in common talk, the modern version of a "MASH"). Essentially a 250 bed combat hospital, designed to operate out of tents, and to primarily treat trauma cases. I honestly have no idea how effective such a unit would be against a pandemic. Other than maybe putting the "walking wounded" so it frees up beds for more critically sick patients. Or in parking the most severely sick, as a place outside of the hospital where they can be largely left to die.

Now I have been in Army Medical for over 8 years now, and I am all for us being activated and put to work. But I want it to be done smart, and done right. Not just to make some feel better.

But pulling out our Amphibious ships when there is no need? I think somebody needs to be drug tested for even making that suggestion.

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RetiredUSN said:

Exactly.

These people that put stupid **** out there do not realize how fast "bio" can take down a crew.

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Oozlefinch said:

Hell, not even taking that into consideration, it is just retarded.

A CVN with a 6,000 person crew, to provide 52 hospital beds. Hell, providing a limousine to take people on Welfare to jobs would be less of a waste of money than that would be.

Now that solution would make sense if we had some kind of natural disaster that eliminated critical infrastructure. But this is the equivalent of throwing bodies at a machinegun in order to take it out. And if we are going to be throwing bodies at this, there are a hell of a lot better ways we can be doing it than this. Somebody wants to make a statement to show they care, and to try and convince others they are "thinking outside the box".

But I want such thinking to be effective. Hell, I even say we give the idea a test run.

The USS Intrepid (CV-11) is sitting right there in New York Harbor. And the USS Hornet (CV-2) is across the bay from San Francisco. Both are Essex class carriers, and could house over 3,000 sailors. Let's turn each of them into hospital ships, and see how effective they are. Hell, turn all of our museum ships into hospital ships, that will provide thousands of beds for this use.

That would still make more sense than taking an active duty warship and turning it over for that purpose.

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RetiredUSN said:

Even the Intrepid would be a fiasco,because she has limited heat and air condition that is only supplied to the tourist areas. It would take months to refit her just for the A/C and heating.

You would have a oven or a ice box depending on the weather.

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