COVID-19: Roosevelt Skipper Says ‘Sailors Do Not Need To Die;’ Disembark & Quarantine Crew

[This story has been updated with comments from Adm. John Aquilino and SecDef Mark Esper]

WASHINGTON: More than 100 sailors aboard the USS Theodore Rooevelt aircraft carrier have tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, according to an urgent memo from the ship’s captain to Navy leadership. The letter, sent Monday, included a plea for the Navy to do more in helping get sailors off the ship and into spaces ashore where social distancing is possible.

“We are not at war,” Capt. Brett Crozier wrote, “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.” 

The carrier was ordered into port in Guam early last week after about two dozen sailors tested positive for the virus. The carrier was in the midst of a deployment to the Philippine and South China seas when it was ordered to port to begin testing of the entire 5,000-sailor crew.

It’s clear that plan has not proven effective, leading to Crozier’s remarkable four-page letter pleading for help. “Removing the majority of personnel from a deployed U.S. nuclear aircraft carrier and isolating them for two weeks may seem like an extraordinary measure,” he wrote. “This is a necessary risk. Keeping over 4,000 young men and women on board the TR is an unnecessary risk and breaks faith with those Sailors entrusted to our care.”

Crozier said that, if needed, the ship could still put to sea and fight effectively, but requested “compliant quarantine rooms” on shore in Guam for the entire crew “as soon as possible.”

Currently, only a small number of sailors have been taken off the ship. For the thousands remaining, it is impossible to practice social distancing on board. “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.”

A Navy official who asked to speak anonymously told me that leadership has heard Crozier’s request for “housing more members of the crew in facilities that allow for better isolation,” and Navy leaders are “moving quickly to take all necessary measures to ensure the health and safety of the crew of USS Theodore Roosevelt, and is pursuing options to address the concerns raised by the commanding officer.”

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly, who said he saw the Roosevelt skipper’s letter this morning, told MSNBC this afternoon that 1,000 sailors have been taken off the ship and “more and more sailors are coming off the ship and are being treated.”

In a phone call with reporters Tuesday evening, Adm. John Aquilino, commander Pacific Fleet refused to back up Modly’s numbers, saying he plans to “quarantine where required, isolate where required, recover as soon as possible and put the ship back in its full-up status”

That will be weeks, at best, if new cases continue to pop up and more sailors need to be quarantined for two weeks at a time.

Aquilino didn’t specify what he needed to help the crew, or when he needed it. Modly said that Guam was not prepared to offer the facilities needed to accommodate all the sailors who have come ashore, but the admiral confirmed that none of the sailors are currently hospitalized. He also said that some will be quarantined aboard the ship, a difficult task in confined spaces.

“There has never been the intent to take all the sailors off that ship, if there were a crisis today, that ship would respond,” he said.

Speaking on CBS Tuesday evening, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he doesn’t think all of the crew should come off the ship.  “I don’t think we’re at that point…We’re moving a lot of supplies and medical assistance out to the carrier in Guam. We’re providing additional medical personnel as they need it.” Esper also said he had not read Capt. Crozier’s letter.

The only other carrier in the Pacific region, the USS Ronald Reagan, is currently undergoing refit and repair in Japan.

Just last week, Modly told reporters at the Pentagon that the Roosevelt “is operationally capable if called upon to do so,” but “we are pulling the ship into Guam. Nobody from the ship will be allowed to leave the ship other than on the pier.”

There are currently 94 US navy ships at sea across the world; the Roosevelt is the only one to report COVID cases so far. 

The Navy has been struggling to get COVID-19 test kits out to those ships at sea, but so far has had limited success. Approximately 800 test kits had been flown to the Roosevelt before it pulled into Guam, not nearly enough for the 5,000 sailors aboard. 

Rear Adm. James Hancock told reporters last week the military was working to get test kits out to the fleet, but “we’re just not there yet. What we can do is do surveillance testing,” which includes temperature checks but not much else. 

The Navy had not disclosed that 100 sailors aboard the ship had tested positive, and had not provided an updated number than confirming eight sailors last week. 

That lack of transparency comes as the Pentagon says it would stop providing specific data about where service members who fall ill are based.

Press Secretary Alyssa Farah said in a statement, that “we will not report the aggregate number of individual service member cases at individual unit, base or Combatant Commands. We will continue to do our best to balance transparency in this crisis with operational security.