Captain of US Navy ship pleads for help as coronavirus infects over 100 of his sailors
'We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die,' Captain Brett Crozier wrote.
A captain of a US Navy nuclear-powered aircraft carrier issued a desperate plea for help after more than 100 sailors on the ship tested positive for coronavirus.
Captain Brett Crozier, captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, sent a letter to Navy officials on Monday to ask for the resources to allow him to isolate his entire crew amid the mounting crisis onboard.
The four-page letter obtained by San Francisco Chronicle, Crozier painted a grim picture of the situation on the warship, which has over 4,000 crew members, currently docked in Guam. He also claimed the Navy failed to provide assistance by allowing crew members off the ship, which he reportedly recommended.
‘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 assets – our sailors,’ Crozier wrote.
The outbreak began on the ship last week and has rapidly spread through the ship after three sailors tested positive for the virus on March 24. Crozier said most of the crew is still on the ship, where social isolation is logistically impossible, although a small group of infected sailors has been taken off.
‘Due to a warship’s inherent limitations of space, we are not doing this. The spread of the disease is ongoing and accelerating,’ Crozier wrote before asking the Navy for ‘compliant quarantine rooms’ in Guam ‘as soon as possible.’
‘Removing the majority of personnel from a deployed US nuclear aircraft carrier and isolating them for two weeks may seem like an extraordinary measure…This is a necessary risk,’ Crozier wrote.
‘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.’
On Tuesday, Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly addressed Crozier’s letter in an interview with CNN.
‘I know that our command organization has been aware of this for about 24 hours and we have been working actually the last seven days to move sailors off the ship,’ Modly said.
‘…The problem is Guam doesn’t have enough beds right now and we’re having to talk to the government to see if we can get some hotel space, create tent-type facilities.’
Motley went on to say that Navy officials are ‘engaged’ in the issue and do not disagree with Crozier.
‘It’s not the same as a cruise ship, that ship has armaments on it, it has aircraft on it, we have to be able to fight fires on board the ship, we have to run a nuclear power plant.’