WASHINGTON — Aboard the service Theodore Roosevelt, latest historical past is repeating itself.As sailors and different crew members who have been
WASHINGTON — Aboard the service Theodore Roosevelt, latest historical past is repeating itself.
As sailors and different crew members who have been quarantined on Guam return to the ship and start preparations to return to sea, tensions have flared once more between the ship’s medical personnel and Navy management over whether or not the Roosevelt is prepared to return to work within the Pacific Ocean.
Medical personnel and crew members aboard the Roosevelt say that a number of returning sailors have displayed signs that they affiliate with the coronavirus. However Navy officers counter that the sailors have examined detrimental twice, and that they might have the flu.
In a single occasion final week, in response to a crew member aboard the ship, a number of sailors with signs related to the coronavirus have been by accident positioned on a bus certain for the Roosevelt. Your complete bus was then despatched again to quarantine and the sailors have been examined once more, Navy officers stated.
“If the outcomes come again detrimental the sailors will return to the ship — if they’re constructive then the sailors will stay in quarantine and will probably be retested after a four-day wait interval,” the Navy stated in an emailed response to The New York Instances.
In a letter to the crew of the Roosevelt dated Might 1 and obtained by The New York Instances, Capt. Carlos A. Sardiello, the present commanding officer of the 1,000-foot-long nuclear-powered plane service, acknowledged that the specter of the virus “onboard the ship stays actual.”
However on Monday night time, the captain additionally gave a collection of phone interviews from the ship to reporters in Washington during which he repeated assurances that the Roosevelt was able to get again to work.
“You’ve simply received to provide them path and provides them the instruments that they want,” he advised The Related Press in a single interview. “Then, no matter you place in entrance of them — they’re going to knock it out of the park.”
Aboard the ship, the crew just isn’t so positive. Medical personnel, who’ve been reluctant to carry sailors again aboard even after 21 days of isolation and two to a few checks, expressed frustration, in response to a well being care supplier on Guam.
The Navy has stopped releasing each day updates on the variety of virus instances among the many crew after publicly saying that 100 p.c of the sailors had been examined. Roughly 1,700 sailors stay on Guam, a lot of them nonetheless quarantined and recovering.
Sailors clear the Roosevelt three to 4 occasions a day, and failing to put on a protecting masks could now topic a sailor to nonjudicial punishment, stated a crew member aboard the ship.
“The united statesS. Theodore Roosevelt is a deployed unit and prepared for tasking if wanted,” Cmdr. J. Myers Vasquez, a U.S. Pacific Fleet spokesman, stated in an e mail. “We stay centered on the well being and security of our sailors, and guaranteeing the complete restoration of all sailors on board U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt.”
In his letter, Captain Sardiello advised the crew to “act such as you and every of your shipmates have it and simply don’t understand it but.” He stated that the Roosevelt’s “collective effort to attain and preserve a Covid-free ship may be undone by a single particular person’s offense or inattention.”
Captain Sardiello stated to count on each day medical screenings and to “transit the ship always like we’re conducting a Man Overboard muster; up and ahead on the starboard facet, down and aft on the port facet. This can restrict the chance of transmission by lowering shut passes.”
Captain Sardiello, who beforehand commanded the Theodore Roosevelt, was reinstated simply over a month in the past when Captain Crozier was eliminated.
“I’ve unanswered questions that the preliminary inquiry has recognized and that may solely be answered by a deeper assessment,” the appearing Navy secretary, James E. McPherson, stated in a press release.
Mr. McPherson stated he was directing the chief of naval operations, Adm. Michael M. Gilday, to oversee the investigation, which is expected to conclude at the end of the month. Adm. Robert P. Burke, the vice chief of naval operations and the officer who conducted the preliminary inquiry, will also carry out the larger investigation.
And in another twist, the Senate Armed Services Committee is holding a hearing on Thursday on President Trump’s nomination of Kenneth Braithwaite to be the permanent secretary of the Navy. If the full Senate ultimately confirms Mr. Braithwaite, who is currently the U.S. ambassador to Norway, it is not clear how he will handle the outcome of the Roosevelt investigation or the possible reinstatement of Captain Crozier.
The Kidd, a Navy destroyer and the second deployed American warship stricken with the virus, has returned to port in San Diego with dozens of cases aboard. The ship was deployed to the eastern Pacific as part of a counternarcotics operation.
It is unclear how the virus got aboard the Kidd, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said Monday during a webinar with the Brookings Institution. But illness spread quickly among the roughly 300 crew members.
“The statistics show that the safest place to be is on a deployed Navy ship, as compared to one that’s in port,” Mr. Esper said. “Of the 90-plus ships we have at sea, we only have two that have been affected.”