JUST IN CASE: With the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt effectively out of commission in Guam and a handful of COVID-19 cases reported among crew members of two other carriers currently in port, the USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan, the Navy is keeping an as yet uninfected carrier at sea off the east coast of the United States on standby for further assignment.

The USS Harry S. Truman and its attendant ships have been designated the “certified carrier strike group force ready for tasking” for at least the next three weeks instead of returning to their home port of Norfolk, Virginia, at the end of a scheduled deployment to the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf region.

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