Navy heeds captain’s call to help crew
The U.S. Navy took action Tuesday to address the deteriorating situation aboard a nuclear aircraft carrier docked in Guam with coronavirus spreading aboard, promising to isolate crew members ashore for rotating quarantine and possibly move many into hotels within 24 hours.
Crew members speaking to The Chronicle praised their outspoken commanding officer, who aired the dire situation in a stark letter Monday addressed to Navy command and first reported Tuesday by The Chronicle. They reiterated his concerns that it is impossible to properly quarantine sailors on board the Theodore Roosevelt and stop the spread of COVID19. A senior officer told The Chronicle more than 100 sailors had tested positive in less than a week.
U.S. Pacific Fleet Adm. John Aquilino said Tuesday that the Navy is developing plans to get a number of sailors off the ship “as soon as possible” and to quarantine them in appropriate, isolated shelters on Guam. There is little infrastructure available, he said, so the effort includes asking the local government for spare
hotels.
“We’re saying the same thing,” Aquilino said of his plans and ship Capt. Brett Crozier’s requests. “I think his concern is with the pace we get sailors off. Not that we’re not going to get sailors off. I just want to be really clear, we will have to leave some number of sailors on that ship as we go through testing, quarantine and isolation to generate completely COVIDfree sailors.”
The plan is to rotate a group — Aquilino did not say how many — off the ship for a 14day quarantine followed by a COVID19 test, and then that healthy group would relieve the team on board. The second group would then get a 14day quarantine in Guam, followed by a test. The plan could keep the Roosevelt docked in Guam for a month.
A sailor aboard the Roosevelt said Tuesday the crew was briefed and told the plan was to move a large number of sailors to hotels for individual quarantine within the next 24 hours. A smaller crew would need to remain aboard the ship on “ready status.”
“The letter worked,” the sailor said.
What sparked the flurry of activity and discussions among the military community was the plea from Crozier, a Santa Rosa native, asking for immediate assistance for his crew of more than 4,000 as coronavirus cases were spiraling out of control.
“This will require a political solution but it is the right thing to do,” Crozier wrote on Monday. “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 trusted asset — our Sailors.”
In the fourpage letter to senior military officials, Crozier said most of the crew remained aboard the ship, where following official guidelines for 14day 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.” He hoped to keep a skeleton crew of about 10% on the ship to look after its two nuclear reactors, weapons and aircraft, and to provide mission readiness in the event of an emergency. Military veterans praised the letter, saying the captain put his crew’s safety ahead of possible career damage.
The letter also appeared to be a hit aboard the ship, as family members began sharing Tuesday on social media The Chronicle’s article, which included a copy of the correspondence.
“My reaction to the letter was totally, ‘Freakin’A man, this Captain really cares!!!’ ” a Navy officer aboard the Roosevelt told The Chronicle on Tuesday. “I then went into my military mode and started to think that having a Captain stand up ‘to The Man’ was a very bold move that could either hurt or help him when it comes to advancing to the rank of Admiral.”
Another Roosevelt sailor, who has been placed on one of the group quarantines, saw a copy of Crozier’s letter from a friend.
“Stunning letter,” the sailor told The Chronicle. “Felt as if there was someone with our best interests in mind. Don’t see that much. It’s usually mission first.”
The sailors, who wished to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said it was nearly impossible on the ship and in the group quarantines ashore to properly social distance. The Chronicle agreed to withhold the sailors’ names based on its anonymous sources policy.
“You have to understand that one (sleeping) area can berth approximately 60 to 150 sailors,” the officer said. “These sailors share showers, sinks, toilets, and they are always in a close contact with others.”
The sailor shared a photo of a group quarantine along the pier, showing a group of cots scattered in a gymnasium. About 200 sailors in that group share a cafeteria, and the female sailors are separated in a hallway, the sailor said.
Adm. Aquilino said the crews were “social distancing to the best of our ability,” acknowledging the challenge of a warship and creating space.
Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly spoke to CNN on Tuesday and said he learned of Crozier’s letter Tuesday morning.
“I know that our command organization has been aware of this for about 24 hours, and we have been working actually the last seven days to move those sailors off the ship and get them into accommodations in Guam,” Modly said. “The problem is that Guam doesn’t have enough beds right now, and we’re having to talk to the government there to see if we can get some hotel space, create tenttype facilities.
“We don’t disagree with the (captain) on that ship, and we’re doing it in a very methodical way because it’s not the same as a cruise ship, that ship has armaments on it, it has aircraft on it, we have to be able to fight fires if there are fires on board the ship, we have to run a nuclear power plant, so there’s a lot of things that we have to do on that ship that make it a little bit different and unique, but we’re managing it and we’re working through it,” he said.
Asked Tuesday what should be done about the Roosevelt, President Trump said he would “let the military make that decision.”
None of the infected sailors had shown serious symptoms as of Tuesday, but the number of those who tested positive jumped exponentially after the Navy reported infections in three crew members on March 24, the first time COVID19 infections had been detected on a naval vessel at sea.
Retired Adm. James Stavridis, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told The Chronicle on Tuesday in an email that “we should expect more such incidents because warships are a perfect breeding ground for coronavirus.”
The ship’s problems will “compound,” Stavridis said, because you can’t tie the vessel up “and send everyone ashore. It is full of weapons, billions of dollars of equipment, fire hazards, and nuclear reactors.”
Mark Cancian, a Marine colonel who served for 37 years before retiring, said that “the Navy has got to figure out how to do this right or else they can’t deploy the rest of the fleet.”
“This is like the test case,” said Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.
Aquilino also addressed the decision to allow the Roosevelt to dock in early March in Da Nang, Vietnam, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of normalized diplomatic ties with the country. Crew members first got sick about two weeks after leaving the port.
The admiral said they reviewed World Health Organization data two days before docking that showed 16 cases far away in Hanoi and no reported cases in 20 days. And crew members were screened and had their temperatures taken before returning on board. He said they are analyzing where the illness started.