Spread of COVID-19 to other US warships after USS Theodore Roosevelt puts military readiness under question
The US Navy found itself in the midst of a big controversy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic as one of its aircraft carriers, USS Theodore Roosevelt, was found to be affected by the virus. More than 400 sailors of the warship tested positive, including its captain Brett Crozier who was also sacked for having written a critical letter over the well-being of his crew members.
The controversy saw the acting Navy secretary Thomas Modly stepping down amid a backlash that he earned for having targeted Crozier as “naive” and “stupid”.
The concern increased as one sailor of the sidelined vessel became the first crew member to be hospitalized on Thursday, April 9, in intensive care in Guam where Roosevelt is docked. He is one of the 400-plus sailors of the ship who have been infected by the virus.
“I guess deep down I was hoping that we would never get to the point. I was hoping that the numbers would be zero at the end of this,” General John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon news briefing the same day. “But that's just not going to be the case with coronavirus.” Hyten said 416 members of Roosevelt’s 4,865-strong crew tested positive while the results of 1,164 were still awaited, while Over 3,100 tested negative.
It's not just about USS Theodore Roosevelt
The news of Roosevelt’s crew members getting infected is worrisome for the US military authorities. It is one of the three of the 11 American aircraft carriers that have been hit by the pandemic. USS Ronald Reagan is the only other US aircraft carrier that is currently located in the western Pacific, a key zone where American vessels are used to showcase its military might against rivals like China and North Korea.
Reagan, however, is anchored in Japan’s Yokosuka. It has been reported that crew members aboard Reagan and USS Nimitz, the oldest carrier of the fleet which is currently docked in Bremerton in Washington are also hit by the virus. Nimitz’s deployment to the Pacific has been deferred by a two-week quarantine of its crew.
Hyten though said the outbreak abroad Nimitz was “very small”. Cmdr John Fage, a spokesperson for the US 3rd Fleet, told the Kitsap Sun that a sailor on Nimitz displayed symptoms and was isolated away from the ship “out of an abundance of caution” but the testing proved inconclusive.
Hyten said the Pentagon was still trying to reach a decision on how to quarantine ships with big crews before they started sailing. He said it would not be wise to think that the Roosevelt case is a one-off one.
“We have too many ships at sea. We have too many deployed capabilities. There's 5,000 sailors on a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. To think that it will never happen again is not a good way to plan,” he said.
The Navy is particularly worried over the possibility of the deployed warships’ crew contracting the disease during port calls, like the one that Roosevelt made in Vietnam last month. The only US aircraft carrier which is now deployed to the Middle East is USS Eisenhower and it has made no port calls since starting from Norfolk on January 12.