For those that think this virus only attacks the old and the feeble!
The captain of a US aircraft carrier, with 5,000 people onboard, including an unconfirmed number who have tested positive for Covid-19, has called for help to save the lives of his sailors.
The US aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt was in the Pacific when the navy reported its first coronavirus case a week ago. It has since pulled into port in Guam, a US island territory in the western Pacific.
A four-page letter, written by the ship’s captain, describes a bleak situation onboard the nuclear-powered carrier as more sailors test positive for the virus.
Captain Brett Crozier, the ship’s commanding officer, wrote that the carrier lacked enough quarantine and isolation facilities and warned the current strategy would slow but fail to eradicate the highly contagious respiratory virus.
In the letter dated Monday, he called for “decisive action” and removing over 4,000 sailors from the ship and isolating them. Along with the ship’s crew, naval aviators and others serve aboard the Roosevelt.
“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,” Crozier wrote.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... -roosevelt
Captain Crozier has probably ruined his naval career in doing the best here for his ailing crew! His superiors show either gross incompetence or studied ignorance and callousness..
US defense secretary Mark Esper said on Tuesday it was not time to evacuate the carrier, adding he had not read the letter in detail.
Admiral John Aquilino, head of the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet, told reporters that the plan was to take some sailors off the ship, test and quarantine them, clean the ship and then rotate them with those on the carrier.
He said that there would be some sailors who would be in quarantine and isolation on the vessel. Asked if he was following what the ship’s captain wanted to do, but was not able to do it at the pace the commanding officer wanted, Aquilino said: “That is absolutely the case.”