USS Theodore Roosevelt sailor dies from coronavirus days after sacked captain said navy 'cannot allow a single sailor to perish'
A sailor aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt has died after testing positive for the novel coronavirus, just days after its captain was removed for penning a letter sounding the alarm about an outbreak on the ship.
The Navy did not disclose the name of the sailor, who died after he was admitted to the intensive care unit of a US Navy hospital on Thursday, April 9. He was reportedly an older member of the crew and was removed from the ship and placed in an isolation house on Naval Base Guam.
He was found unresponsive during a daily medical check on April 9, following which crew members and an onsite medical team administered CPR and emergency responders were notified.
A US defense official also revealed that four further sailors from the ship had been transferred to the hospital. "Over the weekend, four additional Theodore Roosevelt Sailors were admitted to the hospital for monitoring. All are in stable condition, none are in ICU or on ventilators," the official said.
Close to 600 of the 5,000-odd sailors on the USS Theodore Roosevelt have tested positive for COVID-19, with fears that many more have been infected as well. The Navy said 92% of the crew members had already been tested for the virus. A little over 4,000 have been moved ashore and quarantined.
The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier has been in the news after its Captain, Brett Crozier, was fired by Navy leaders who said he "demonstrated extremely poor judgment" and created a panic by sending a letter pleading for help for the ship.
In the strongly-worded four-page letter that made its way to the media, Crozier wrote they were "not at war, and therefore cannot allow a single Sailor to perish as a result of this pandemic unnecessarily" and criticized what he termed was the Navy's "inappropriate focus" on testing.
He said that testing alone would not stop the spread of the virus and that because none of the berthings on the warship was appropriate for quarantine or isolation, the best course of action would be to move personnel off the ship into "shore-based group restrict movement locations."
Crozier said the ship's environment was conducive to spread the disease and slammed the "ineffectiveness of the current strategy" that had seen only a small percentage of the crew moved off the ship.
He pointed to the failure of using a similar strategy on the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship where 619 of the 3,700 passengers tested positive for COVID-19 and concluded by stating that "decisive action is required" before again asking that the sailors be taken off the Roosevelt.
"There are challenges associated with securing individualized lodging for our crew," he wrote. "This will require a political solution but it is the right thing to do. We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trust asset - our Sailors."
Shortly after penning the letter, Crozier was removed from his position on the ship by Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly, who said he had "allowed the complexity of the challenge of the COVID breakout on the ship to overwhelm his ability to act professionally."