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The captain of a nuclear aircraft carrier with more than 100 sailors infected with the coronavirus pleaded Monday with U.S. Navy officials for resources to allow isolation of his entire crew and avoid possible deaths in a situation he described as quickly deteriorating.
The unusual plea from Capt. Brett Crozier, a Santa Rosa native, came in a letter obtained exclusively by The Chronicle and confirmed by a senior officer on board the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, which has been docked in Guam following a COVID-19 outbreak among the crew of more than 4,000 less than a week ago.
In the four-page letter to senior military officials, Crozier said only a small contingent of infected sailors have been off-boarded. Most of the crew remain aboard the ship, where following official guidelines for 14-day quarantines and social distancing is impossible. “Due to a warship’s inherent limitations of space, we are not doing this,” Crozier wrote. “The spread of the disease is ongoing and accelerating.” He asked for “compliant quarantine rooms” on shore in Guam for his entire crew “as soon as possible.”
“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.”
So far, none of the infected sailors has shown serious symptoms, but the number of those who have tested positive has jumped exponentially since the Navy reported infections in three crew members on March 24, the first time COVID-19 infections had been detected on a naval vessel at sea.
Senior military officials said last week that the entire crew of more than 4,000 will be tested. The carrier’s home port is San Diego. But by the time the ship reached port in Guam on Friday, the number of cases had grown to 25, and soon after to 36, according to reports.
Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Mike Gilday responded to the increasing numbers late last week by saying the Navy was taking “this threat very seriously” and working to isolate positive cases to halt the spread. He promised to increase the rate of testing and to isolate infected sailors. He stressed that the top two priorities were caring for their sailors and maintaining “mission readiness.”
But by Monday, a senior officer on board the massive aircraft carrier, who wished to remain anonymous because they are not authorized to speak to the media, said between 150 and 200 sailors had tested positive. None had been hospitalized — yet, the source said. The Chronicle agreed to withhold the officer’s name based on its anonymous sources policy.
In his letter to top Navy command, Crozier said if it was operating in wartime, the ship would cope and continue operations and battle the illness as best it could. “However, we are not at war, and therefore cannot allow a single Sailor to perish as a result of this pandemic unnecessarily,” Crozier wrote. “Decisive action is required now in order to comply with CDC and (Navy) guidance and prevent tragic outcomes.”
Gilday told reporters last week it was unclear if sailors became infected following the ship’s previous port of call in early March to Da Nang, Vietnam. Gilday said they debated whether to go on with the Vietnam visit, but at the time there were only 16 coronavirus cases in northern Vietnam and the port was in the central part of the country. Sailors were screened prior to returning on board. The first three sailors tested positive 15 days after leaving Vietnam, officials said.
The virus has been hard to contain on board ever since. Federal and military guidelines recommend individual quarantine, including no use of common areas. “Due to the close quarters required on a warship and the current number of positive cases, every single Sailor, regardless of rank, on board the TR must be considered ‘close contact,’” Crozier wrote.
The tight quarters on the carrier are “most conducive to spread,” he wrote, including large amounts of sailors in a confined space, shared sleeping quarters, restrooms, workspaces and computers, a common mess hall, meals cooked by exposed personnel, and movement constraints requiring communal contact with ladders and hatches.
He called the current strategy followed so far — of moving a small infected group onto the pier, increasing cleaning and attempts at social distancing ineffective. “The current strategy will only slow the spread,” he wrote. “The current plan in execution on TR will not achieve virus eradication on any timeline.”
The captain compared the situation to the Diamond Princess cruise ship, citing a study that focused on what could have happened to that cruise ship had no isolation been done. A total of 712 passengers eventually tested positive for COVID-19 from that cruise departing from Japan; however, the study found if there had been no early isolation close to 80% of passengers and crew would have been infected. And had the cruise line immediately evacuated the ship after the first positive tests, the study found only 76 people would have tested positive.
Crozier said the Theodore Roosevelt could fare even worse, as a warship is not designed to provide such individual isolation like guest cabins. “TR’s best-case results, given the current environment, are likely to be much worse,” he wrote.
As for the senior military officials’ promising tests for all crew aboard the carrier last week, Crozier said it is not a solution. “Testing has no direct influence on the spread of the COVID-19 virus. It merely confirms the presence of the virus,” he wrote. Of the first 33 Roosevelt sailors testing positive, seven, or 21%, originally tested negative. After testing negative, those seven sailors presented symptoms within 1 to 3 days after their initial negative test, Crozier said.
The testing should be utilized, the captain wrote, after a proper 14-day quarantine to ensure no infected sailors return on board a clean ship. Only one of the pier-side accommodations meet Navy guidelines, he wrote, adding that two sailors tested positive after sleeping in a gym with cots.
If the Navy focuses on being battle ready, it will lead to “losses to the virus,” Crozier said. The second option, the captain recommended: “Achieve a COVID-free TR.” Methodically clean the ship, while isolating the crew in port with a massive amount of individualized lodging equipment. As part of his plan, 10% of the crew would stay on board to run the reactor plant, sanitize the ship, ensure security and provide contingency response for emergencies.
“As war is not imminent,” Crozier wrote, “we recommend pursuing the peace time end state.”
© 2015 Mutual Fund Observer. All rights reserved.
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Comments
Courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle
Please note that this Captain had to leak his letter to the press because Washington was ignoring it, presumably because it's bad press.
And so it goes
Peace and Flatten the Curve
Rono
The San Francisco Chronicle ("the Chron", as we locals call it) says that it's an exclusive story for them. If so, it's perhaps more than just a coincidence that Captain Crozier's family lives in Santa Rosa, a smaller city just to the north of SF.
OJ
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6821571/TR-COVID-19-Assistance-Request.pdf
I tend to latch onto numbers. Here are a couple that jumped out at me:
From the Chron article: Unless the virus spontaneously generated, the infection must have come from outside contact either in Vietnam or earlier. So the sailors didn't test positive until at least 15 days after they were infected.
Either they were asymptomatic for 15 days (or longer), or the navy was slow in testing. If the former, that would show that 14 days of quarantine is insufficient.
From the letter: Over 1/5 of tests of infected people producing false negatives is disturbing. The Chron excerpt above also suggests false negatives (screens before reboarding).
If concerned about 'false negative' coronavirus test, self-quarantine anyway: Experts, ABC News, April 1
https://abcnews.go.com/US/concerned-false-negative-coronavirus-test-quarantine-experts/story?id=69921187 Not to worry, though. Trump said that "Our testing is also better than any country in the world."
A ‘negative’ coronavirus test result doesn’t always mean you aren’t infected
https://msn.com/en-us/news/us/questions-about-accuracy-of-coronavirus-tests-sow-worry/ar-BB124KXh?li=BBnb7Kz
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/captain-of-coronavirus-stricken-aircraft-carrier-relieved-of-command-2020-04-02?mod=mw_latestnews
WASHINGTON — Navy leaders have relieved the captain of a U.S. aircraft carrier after a memo to military officials pleading for help with a coronavirus outbreak at sea was leaked to a newspaper, officials said.
One of the nasty ironies of the military. He was a Navy Captain which is a full bird colonel in the other branches. Commanding a nuclear carrier meant that he was in line for Admiral. He went public [because Washington was ignoring him because it was bad press] to save his men Knowing it would end his career.
Now he violated the Chain of Command and has to be cashiered . . . but I would consider it an honor and privilege to serve under this officer. OoohRah!
And so it goes
Peace and Flatten the Curve
Rono
'undue panic' rises almost to the level of gold, though
I totally agree.
The bad guys had no idea where that carrier was located, because they have no satellite capability and no military intelligence operations.
And once the bad guys became aware of the "weakened status" and finally (!) found the ship's location (by reading the fake news press reports) there was absolutely nothing holding them back from attacking and sinking the ship right there in that top-secret location, Guam.
How can anyone post such silliness, without reading it back to themselves and asking if it makes any sort of sense at all? Do these people actually live in a world where that sort of commentary is taken seriously, or is it all some sort of put-on just to try and annoy others? Possibly it's just a feeble attempt to emulate their anointed leader... a rare example of trickle-down that actually works.
Speaking of "military intelligence", I'm now wondering if the United States Navy still has any.
As for the clown talking satellites & all that garbage, yes, the big boys will know where the ship is...DUH...but I haven't seen Russia or China blatantly attack us in quite some time. Our "enemies" are the ones you liberals seem to love & support, the terrorists killing our soldiers on a daily basis, like Al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS...if those clowns have satellites, then hell, I need to buy 1 too.
Instead of trying to cure the covid19 plague, scientist need to work on curing liberalism, as that is the worst disease EVER & likely has caused more deaths and ruined more lives than every war, disease, dictator, genocide combined!
"Watching @NYGovCuomo’s presentations makes me marvel at how mindblowingly inarticulate and ignorant @realDonaldTrump is.
- George Conway April 2, 2020
I can see that you are far from a conservative.