Naval Base Guam – Eighteen sailors are in quarantine and five sailors have tested positive for COVID-19 for the second time. All affected sailors were removed from the USS Theodore Roosevelt and placed into quarantine or treatment.
The resurgence of the virus in the five sailors underscores how highly contagious the coronavirus actually is. All five sailors had recovered and test negative twice in a row before returning to the ship.
Late in March, the USS Theodore Roosevelt was pulled from its scheduled deployment in the Indo-Pacific and docked at the Guam Naval Base. Currently, 1,102 sailors have tested positive for COVID-19. In addition to that, 4,000 of the 4,800 crew members were placed into quarantine or isolation.
Earlier this month hundreds of sailors began returning to the ship, in coordinated waves, to get ready to set sail again. However, on Friday the five Sailors developed influenza-like illness symptoms.
As of Thursday, more than 2,900 sailors have reboarded the aircraft carrier. The Navy reported about 25% of the more than 1,000 who had tested positive has now recovered.
Related USS Theodore Roosevelt News
The former commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, Capt. Brett Crozier, has been reassigned to San Diego. He will serve in a temporary capacity as the special assistant to the Naval Air Forces chief of staff.
Crozier was relieved of his command in early April. He wrote a warning letter about the coronavirus outbreak aboard the aircraft carrier to his chain of command. The letter leaked to the press causing a scandal for the Trump administration.
Following a preliminary inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the leak, Navy leaders recommended reinstating Crozier. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper then ordered the Navy to perform a deeper investigation. That review is ongoing and Gilday is expected to submit his findings on May 27.
But Wait There’s More
With an aircraft carrier and destroyer sidelined by novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreaks, Defense Secretary Mark Esper took to social media on Wednesday to tout the U.S. military’s naval supremacy in the face of the global pandemic.
But there’s a big problem: to illustrate America’s naval power, Esper (or his public affairs officers) opted for a photo of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which is currently laid up in Guam with 1,102 positive cases and 5 reoccurring cases of COVID-19.
The USS Theodore Roosevelt is less the symbol of U.S. naval power and more a symbol of the Navy’s dysfunctional leadership and bad timing.
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