ROOSEVELT LEAVES SAN DIEGO
Carrier had been sidelined for months after more than 1,200 sailors on board tested positive for virus
SAN DIEGO
For the second time this year, the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt left San Diego on Monday for a scheduled deployment, just five months after an ill-fated deployment that saw a quarter of its crew infected with the novel coronavirus.
Before the departure from San Diego on Monday, more than 5,500 sailors were sequestered at least 14 days to prevent the virus from again coming on board.
COVID-19 cases are surging in
San Diego County and the region, and much of California is under a strict stay-at-home order since Sunday morning.
A Navy official declined to comment on where the Roosevelt will go or how long its deployment might be. West Coast carriers commonly deploy to the western Pacific, Indian Ocean or the Persian Gulf.
To keep the ship virus-free, all sailors on board had to isolate for at least 14 days.
Those who tested positive for COVID-19 had to meet certain return-to-work criteria, such as having no fever for 24 hours and being at least 14 days past when symptoms first appeared, said Cmdr. Sean Robertson, a spokesman for the San Diego-based U.S. 3rd Fleet.
A negative COVID-19 test is not among the Navy’s criteria to return to work after testing positive.
A recent Navy administrative message also says that “sailor rates of infection are generally the same as the rates of infection in the local area” and that 35 percent of sailors with the virus have no symptoms.
At least 200 of the Navy’s ships have had at least one case on board, the Navy said.
The Roosevelt has had one of the Navy’s most visible and problematic coronavirus outbreaks. About two months after the Theodore Roosevelt left San Diego in January 2020, the ship visited Da Nang, Vietnam. Two weeks after that visit, sailors on board began testing positive for COVID-19. The ship diverted to Guam, where the majority of the crew sequestered at local hotels as the virus spread.