On 27 March a US aircraft carrier, Theodore Roosevelt, put into port in Guam following a COVID-19 outbreak among its crew. In the close confines of the crew quarters the virus had spread rapidly and the captain broadcast the need for a response. He was promptly removed from his command, leading to ructions on board because of his popularity, and consternation in Washington ending with the acting navy secretary in the Pentagon resigning. Then the crew of another carrier, the Ronald Reagan, also caught the disease, and the ship had to stay in its home port, Yokosuka, in Japan.
These outbreaks had bigger consequences than the bad health of the sailors and the derailed careers of their leaders, however. Both carriers had been patrolling the Pacific in order to discourage the Chinese from being too ambitious in the disputed waters of the South China Sea. It was perhaps no coincidence that China then sent one of its own carriers to transit between Japan’s Okinawa Islands for the second time in a month, whereupon the US Navy promptly sent one of its guided missile cruisers, the Bunker Hill, through the Spratly Islands, claimed by China.
The Ronald Reagan and its strike group remain sequestered in Yokosuka, probably just as well as it now turns out that the Roosevelt’s captain, Brett Crozier, was spot-on in making such a fuss about that outbreak. The Theodore Roosevelt itself remains in port in Guam with most of its crew in quarantine, and almost all now tested for the virus. Of the 4,800 people in its crew, 940 have tested positive and one, Charles Thacker, has died. Pressure to re-instate Crozier is intense.
