Aircraft carrier U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt is over 1,000 feet long and has a 4,000-plus sailor crew.
Topline: Captain Brett Crozier—who was removed from command after a letter he sent documenting the failures of the Navy to remove sailors and disinfect a coronavirus-stricken aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean was leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle—has reportedly tested positive for coronavirus.
- Crozier began showing COVID-19 symptoms before Thursday and is being quarantined in the “distinguished visitors quarter” on Naval Base Guam, according to the New York Times. (The Navy has yet to respond to request for comment.)
- His removal ignited a political firestorm over the weekend, as President Trump endorsed it, labeling Crozier’s actions as “Terrible” on Saturday.
- Defense Secretary Mark Esper told CNN on Sunday that he “supports” Navy Secretary Thomas Modly’s “very tough decision;” meanwhile Joe Biden, in an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” called his dismissal “close to criminal.”
- After more than 100 of the 4,000-plus sailor crew tested positive for coronavirus, Crozier sent a letter via an apparently unsecured and unclassified server on March 30 to 20-to-30 Naval leaders documenting the failures of the Navy in handling the situation to curb the spread, which was leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle.
- “We are not at war, and therefore cannot allow a single sailor to perish as a result of this pandemic unnecessarily,” said Crozier in the leaked document. “Decisive action is required now.”
- The captain was relieved from command by acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly on Thursday for failing to use secure communications; a video showed him disembarking from the ship walking alone down a gangplank and then saluting as sailors on the ship cheered his name and clapped.
Key Background: Captain Brett Crozier was the captain of Nuclear-powered Navy aircraft carrier U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt, which is anchored in Guam. Crozier will keep his rank, but has been reassigned to the Naval Air Forces Pacific Command after his quarantine period, says the New York Times. With intervention from Naval leaders, the sailors are all taking COVID-19 tests, with those testing negative quarantining in hotels in Guam, says the New York Times.
The U.S. Armed Forces' ability to combat coronavirus has been viewed with skepticism by publications like The Atlantic, Slate, Newsweek and The New Republic for the organization’s failure to control the spread of the virus on their bases and inability to comply with social distancing.
Because of the shared ventilation systems aboard boats, COVID-19 can be uniquely deadly for people living at sea (like cruise ship passengers and sailors), making quarantine unsafe at sea as the virus gets pumped through living quarters, Qingyan Chen, Purdue’s James. G. Dwyer Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University, told Forbes.
