US Navy Evacuating Aircraft Carrier Infected by Coronavirus

3/31/20
The U.S. Navy says it will remove the majority of USS Theodore Roosevelt’s crew so the aircraft carrier can be disinfected, one day after its commanding officer sent an urgent message asking for help controlling a COVID-19 outbreak. “The key is to make sure that we can get a set of crew members that can man all those critical functions on the ship, make sure they’re clean, then get them back on while we clean the ship and get the other crew members off,” Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said in a Tuesday interview with CNN. “And that’s the process we’re going through. It’s very methodical. We’re absolutely accelerating it as we go.” The 1,100-foot Theodore Roosevelt tied up in Guam on Friday after several sailors were discovered to be infected. On Monday, Capt. Brett Crozier sent an extraordinary four-page letter asking for Navy help. His warship has no space to give infected patients a separate berthing space and bathroom, so he asked for assistance finding rooms ashore. “The spread of the disease is ongoing and accelerating,” Crozier wrote in the March 30 letter, which was obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle. “Decisive action is required.”

In the interview, Modly said, “We’ve been working the past several days to get those sailors off the ship and to get them into accommodations in Guam. In a conference call with reporters early on Tuesday evening, Pacific Fleet commander Adm. John Aquilino said, “We understand the [CO’s] request. We’ve been working it in advance, continue to work it and I’m optimistic that the additional quarantine and isolation capacity that’s being discussed will be delivered shortly.” Aquilino underscored that some portion of the crew would remain aboard. “I need to be able to run the [nuclear] reactors, fight fires, do damage control, feed the crew that’s aboard. All of those things are a requirement and the team is working through how to do that while at the same time executing our approach to generating fully healthy and COVID-free sailors,” he said. The Roosevelt and its associated battle group departed San Diego on Jan. 17 and was amid a deployment to the western Pacific when its first crew member was found to have COVID-19. Aquilino declined to discuss the ship’s future operational schedule.

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swing_voter said:

I guess it didn't look good in an election year.

Young healthy people don't have much to fear. There might be one or two senior officers who are over 50.

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“Removing the majority of personnel from a deployed U.S. nuclear aircraft carrier and isolating them for two weeks may seem like an extraordinary measure. ... This is a necessary risk,” Crozier wrote. “Keeping over 4,000 young men and women on board the TR is an unnecessary risk and breaks faith with those Sailors entrusted to our care.”

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4/1/20
About one-fifth of the USS Theodore Roosevelt’s 4,865 sailors are off the COVID-stricken aircraft carrier and into isolation on Guam, with about 2,700 more expected to evacuate in the next few days, Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said Wednesday. Modly’s update comes two days after the ship’s captain sent a stark letter up the chain of command — made public on Tuesday by the San Francisco Chronicle — warning that fully 90 percent of the crew needed to evacuate and isolate for two weeks for their own safety. The secretary’s comments clarify that the Navy was indeed evacuating most sailors from the ship, after Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in a CBS News interview aired late Tuesday that said an evacuation was not yet necessary. Modly praised the captain for the prodding, and said that evacuation efforts already were in the works but not with the right urgency. “The misunderstanding was the requirement to get off the ship faster,” Adm. Michael Gilday, chief of naval operations, said at a Pentagon press conference.

Ninety sailors have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, while 593 have tested negative and several hundred tests are still pending, Modly told reporters. About one-quarter of the crew has been tested so far. None of the sailors has yet required hospitalization for the disease, he said. About 1,000 sailors will remain aboard the Roosevelt to run its nuclear reactors, oversee its weapons, and keep the ship running, Gilday said. The others are coming off the ship as suitable accommodations can be found or created for them ashore, Modly said. No one knows how the coronavirus got onto the ship. Modly said all sailors returning from an early-March port visit in Danang, Vietnam, were tested and found negative for the virus. The first two sailors to develop COVID symptoms did so 14 days after the ship left Danang, he said.

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