Three sailors on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt tested positive for the novel coronavirus while deployed in the Pacific region, the first cases on a Navy ship at sea.
Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly announced the cases on Tuesday and confirmed the Navy now has 86 COVID-19 cases, including 57 military, 13 civilians, 11 dependents, and five contractors.
“Three cases of COVID-19 have been identified among personnel currently deployed and underway on the USS Theodore Roosevelt. These are our first three cases of COVID-19 on a ship that is deployed,” he said.
All Navy ships have followed an order to remain 14 days at sea to isolate sailors and prevent the spread of the virus. However, helicopters and planes have landed and departed from ships during that time. Navy officials speaking at a Pentagon press briefing Tuesday would not detail the forensics conducted after the case was reported, other than to say lessons are being learned and new best practices are being put into place.
Adm. Mike Gilday, chief of naval operations, said Tuesday that the USS Theodore Roosevelt last docked 15 days ago in Da Nang, located in central Vietnam. At the time, the Navy assessed that the port visit was a safe one because the 16 cases in Vietnam were in the northern region of the country.
“The commander on the ship right now is doing the best he can to isolate those known persons that came into contact with those three people,” he said. “We are not in a position right now to say that we have to pull that ship in.”
Since the port call, Modly said with “high confidence” that all port visits have been canceled except those involving maintenance and resupply, but sailors are not allowed to leave the pier. Navy officials said the carrier was capable of treating the patients, but a decision was made to transfer them to a Department of Defense hospital in the Pacific where they could be more closely monitored.
The Navy is also trying to gain capacity for on-ship testing. Presently, tests need to be flown to land-based laboratories for review. “Without healthy people on a ship, we can’t do the mission,” Gilday added.
Worldwide, there have been more than 409,000 cases of the coronavirus, about 106,000 recoveries, and at least 18,246 deaths, according to the latest reading by the Johns Hopkins University tracker.
