USS Theodore Roosevelt Sailor Passes Away Due to the Coronavirus
A Sailor stationed onboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt succumbs to the effects of the Coronavirus. His condition had reached the point where he was placed in intensive care. When they checked on him on Thursday morning, he was unresponsive.
About 585 onboard the ship has tested positive as of the linked article’s posting. Another Sailor has been hospitalized.
From U.S. News and World Report:
Then acting-Navy Secretary Thomas Modly relieved the ship’s commander, Capt. Brett Crozier, earlier this month after he sent an email that later became public begging for more assistance in mitigating the spread of the virus. Modly later resigned following widespread backlash to his decision and his attempts to defend it.
Roughly 90 percent of the crew of 4,800 had been tested for the virus, the Navy said on Monday, as the ship’s commanders disembark a majority of the crew for treatment and isolation on the island. Navy leaders continue to say that the carrier remains ready to deploy if necessary, with a skeleton crew on board to maintain essential tasks such as maintaining the ship’s nuclear reactors.
At least four of the military’s 11 aircraft carriers have reported instances of the coronavirus among its crew. The USS Nimitz, currently preparing to deploy from its home port in Washington, instituted new measures to contain and treat the virus following news of the Roosevelt and two reported cases of the virus among its own crew. Those sailors have completed quarantine measures, having shown no further symptoms, and as of Friday were returning to the Nimitz.
U.S. News and World Report has more here.
RIP shipmate.
That’s sad. And alarming. I would have bet the
people on a US Navy carrier would be in exceptional
help or they would not sail to begin with.
But damn, 4800 is a lot people and given the odds
something would not be known until an event like this.
Rest in peace sailor.
I can tell you that commanders are under intense pressure to report top readiness at all times, to include personnel readiness.
Individuals are under intense pressure to not report any ailments or injuries that will prevent them from being deployable- there is still a blanket policy to separate service members that are non-deployable for six months.
Plus, as I’ve pointed out before, the Navy leads the services in their obesity rate at 22%- while still lower than the US average of 39%, that means that there is a good probability that over 100 of the sailors testing positive for Covid on the TR were obese. Then you have those with undetected conditions like asthma and diabetes, hyptertenstion, etc.or unreported.
I would be interested to find out what medical conditions are waiverable for sailors embarked on a carrier.
I really do hope that the steps the Navy’s taken will prevent further loss of life or serious illness. I also hope they are not waiting to figure out what went wrong on the TR- aside from the obvious like the port call in Vietnam.
When I waa a kid back in the sixties the
Wasp CV-18 was in Boston Harbor and myself,
my brother and my dad got a tour of the ship.
We went out to her via launch and I do not
recall any kind of screening whatsoever.
I could have been carrying just about anything
in the way of illness and nobody would have known.
It was an awesome thrill to crawl over a fighter jet
and ride the elevator up to the flight deck.
We had ice cream in the Galley. I got a chuckle
out of the motorcycles that were used to travel
along the deck.
Then when I got older I joined the Army.
Not much has changed in 4 decades. The same was true then as well.
That said, then higher HQs were at least willing to accept accurate reports from lower-level units. I won’t speculate regarding how much “subjective upgrading” was going on in THEIR reports to even higher HQ or DA; I don’t know.
FWIW: I wouldn’t be all that sure that Vietnam is where the TR initially picked up the 2019 Wuhan coronavirus. Per Johns Hopkins map, Vietnam has had an extremely low number of confirmed cases of coronavirus – less than 300. Perhaps that number is due to deliberate “lowball reporting”, perhaps not.
However, given the historical (literally 2 millenia) of historical enmity between Vietnam and China, even today there’s precious little travel between Vietnam and the PRC. Moreover, the first case in Vietnam was discovered after the disease was publicly announced to be spreading human-to-human – and Vietnam is still quite authoritarian. So it’s entirely possible that unlike China, the Vietnamese authorities took strong enough measures to nip things “in the bud”.
Bottom line: IMO it’s entirely possible this infection was acquired elsewhere – even back at home port.
You may be right, although I’m not sure it matters where it came from.
For years during weekly command and staff meetings I sat through the S-1 or surgeon reporting Medical readiness. How many on profile, how many going through med boards, and the dreaded Cat 4 Dental (you are non-deployable if you haven’t had your annual exam. Soldier A may be in need of 4 root canals, but he’s deployable because his exam is current. Soldier B may have perfect teeth, but if he missed his exam he is non-deployable and there will be hell to pay).
I don’t care what is on the training schedule, God help you if you have a Paratrooper miss a medical or dental appointment. If the kid is being chaptered, better have an NCO walk him around to his appointments.
All of that concern goes out the window when deployment time rolls around. At first they would reassign the sick, lame, and lazy to the next unit down the street, but after a few years G-1 figured out that we were just moving the problem around. After a while, everyone got deployed.
One of the best jokes in the 82nd was ‘hand your crutches to the safety’* ).meaning that we don’t care if you have a broken leg, get your ass on the airplane. I’ve seen kids with their legs in a cast checking IDs at the battalion TOC in the field.
Something tells me that a carrier getting ready to sail is a similar environment. I’m not saying that the skipper lied about anything, I’m saying that there may have been a department head or Chief that perhaps liberally interpreted a profile.
*in the airplane before a jump you check each paratrooper’s static line to make sure a) they are actually hooked up and b) the static line isn’t wrapped around their neck (or worse), the JM tells each one to hand their static line to the safety. Not that they listen.
Boy you do make some fucking baseless assumptions, don’t you?
Having been on five deployments and numerous extended runs on four (count ’em, four) different sea-going commands, one mixed gender, hiding the “blind/crippled/crazy” shit ain’t gonna fly.
I don’t know of too many LPO’s, Chiefs, or officers who were willing to risk their careers falsifying readiness reports. Dude has a fractured taint? Suck it up and get on the boat. My wife she, my kids they, my dog it? STFU.
Non-deployable? Broken bones? Questionable health issues? Stay until you get it resolved and then rejoin the command. I lost an augment because a guy in my division broke his collarbone and there went my schools.
Army may do things a certain way, but don’t assume that’s how it’s done universally.
I agree that the source doesn’t matter at this point.
I could be wrong above, too. But I simply get tired of hearing the “they obviously acquired it at the Vietnam port call” assertion. With a population of 97.1+M and < 300 total reported cases of the virus in Vietnam, seems to me that the TR acquiring the virus there would be kinda unlikely. Yet people seem to have jumped on that bandwagon without even looking at the numbers.
Personally, I tend to believe Vietnam's numbers. They're still quite authoritarian, and they know how the PRC operates. There's absolutely no love lost between the two; and the Vietnamese have very long memories. In particular, I'm guessing they remember how China bungled SARS not that long ago.
Godspeed and Farewell Sailor. Another Warrior killed in the war against the communists.
Another story in the US News was the blurb about the Smithfield Pork Processing plant in South Dakota closing due to the positive testing of employees there. No too many know/realize that the ChiComs bought the controlling interest in Smithfield a few years back. That sale took an act of Congress. Guess who was POTUS when that came down. And no, Larsie boi, it wasn’t DJT. As tragic as these deaths are to this disease, the beating that our food supply chain will be rearing its ugly head soon. Milk is being dumped, the kritters are not going to the slaughter houses, and veggies are rotting on the vines.
“Milk is being dumped”
I know, same thing going on here.
I lived on a Dairy farm for half a dozen years
back in the 70’s and the owner would dump milk
when he couldn’t get a good price for it.
Hood was the big cow back then and price fixing
was rampant.
Maybe today it is because of lack of buyers.
Dunno, crazy times bro, crazy times.
Lack of commercial (restaurant) use.
Bingo…!!!
Fair winds and following winds my brother
Came to say this. Sad.
Godspeed and rest in peace Sir. God be with your family.
Damn this sucks. RIP bro. With almost 600 infected, tragically this was bound to happen. Hopefully this is the first and last one.
No way to know if a faster response by the Navy brass could have prevented this, but I hope that they learn something from this clusterfork.
RIP Sailor! Fair winds and following seas.
R.I. P. Sailor, Fair Winds and Following Seas.
My condolences to this Sailor’s friends and family. I can’t imagine how I would react if my son (an AD Marine) passed away due to this while serving at his post. It has to be devastating for them.
TO change the subject a bit, another sailor we all know just had his final NTSB report released, complete with all the gory details. Looks like the lawer was doped up -suffering from PTSD from his SV ramifications, jail sentence, and 1.3M judgement – and overstressed the airframe causing the left wing to rip off. During the autopsy, they were unable to examine his brain due to lack of material to work with… truly an apt synopsis of his life.
https://www.news-press.com/story/news/2020/04/13/crash-analysis-said-fort-myers-pilot-beset-multiple-issues-fatal-crash/2981060001/
RIP, Sailor.
May God comfort your loved ones and shipmates in their loss.
Amen.
So sad.
RIP, sailor. May your family and loved ones find comfort during this time.