Top Navy Brass Defend Response To Virus-Stricken Carrier U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt
Speaker 1: 00:00 As you just heard. Governor Gavin Newsome has wrapped up his daily briefing on the coven 19 pandemic in California and he started with a look on the economy. 1.9 million Californians have filed for unemployment in the last couple of weeks. He also announced a new program for some small businesses that give them a reprieve from paying sales tax and provide micro lending opportunity. He also said he continues to be quote, mesmerized by the efforts of hospitals and healthcare workers across the state Speaker 2: 00:31 every hour, every day. We must take advantage of keeping this curve and a modest trajectory so we don't experience what other parts of our country for that matter, other parts of the globe have. And every day none of us will regret doing our part, uh, to do more to bend that curve. Speaker 1: 00:49 Meanwhile, across the globe, members of the crew of the San Diego based USS theater, Roosevelt continued to be moved onshore in Guam to be tested for Covance 19 the Navy expects nearly 3000 sailors of the aircraft carrier to be on Guam for testing and quarantine by tomorrow. During that time, the Navy plans to disinfect the ship. About 100 sailors have tested positive for the virus. KPBS military reporter Steve Walsh has been following this story. And Steve, welcome to the program. Speaker 3: 01:21 Hi Maureen. Speaker 1: 01:22 What do we know about the outbreak on board the Roosevelt? When did it start? Speaker 3: 01:26 So we found out a week ago that due sailors tested positive and were flown off the Theodore Roosevelt, the number of cases just kept multiplying the TRS. Now one of three ships to get testing equipment. They came into port after a visit in Vietnam where, uh, the crew were part of ceremonies there. And then Monday the captain of the carrier wrote a letter demanding more be done. That letter became public on Tuesday. So now the carrier's doctor in Guam, while they try to contain the outbreak. Speaker 1: 01:55 Yeah. And just about a week's time, the number of coven positive sailors jumped from three to 93. Do we know if any of those sailors are seriously ill? Speaker 3: 02:06 So secretary of the Navy, Thomas Mowgli, uh, reported that no one has been hospitalized. The first few crew members have recovered. The scary part is among the 93 cases, uh, that not all of them actually showed signs of the virus before they were tested. Speaker 1: 02:21 The Roosevelt's captain, Brett Crozier wrote and really impassioned letter, as you say, that leaked to the press and that was to Navy brass to allow sailors off the ship. Why did he think that was necessary? What was he really concerned about? The, the safety of the crew? Speaker 3: 02:41 No, he's incredibly concerned and we haven't been able to talk to him though. We've certainly reached out to him. But I mean, just quoting from the letter, you know, we are not at war and therefore we cannot allow a single sailor to perish as a result of this pandemic unnecessarily. Decisive action is required now in order to comply. The CDC and he goes through all of the issues that we've been talking about, how they cannot isolate people, they cannot. There's no way that you can keep six feet of social distance between sailors on something as small as an aircraft carrier. He also talked about how some of the, they've relied too much on testing in his mind that some of the sailors initially tested negative and then a couple days later came back and tested positive for the virus. So he wanted to get as many people off of that ship as possible and do a complete deep cleaning in Guam Speaker 1: 03:34 and the tightly packed conditions onboard an aircraft carrier. I mean that makes social distancing impossible, isn't that right? Speaker 3: 03:41 Right. So the captain wrote in that letter that they can't effectively isolate crew members who are suspected of testing positive and this is an aircraft carrier, so people eat together, they sleep in close quarters, a mainly squeezed by one another throughout the day. The captain actually wanted all but 10% of the ship to remain on board or to be removed, uh, while they do a deep cleaning of the carrier in Guam. Speaker 1: 04:07 And was the Navy reluctant to allow that? Speaker 3: 04:10 They were a little slow to react. The captain was very Frank. He's saying that there was no reason that anyone should die over this, that they needed to get people off of the ship. Now, the secretary of the Navy says that they were responding to the situation as it evolve. They rushed the test kits to the Roosevelt and to other ships and that they are trying to balance readiness with combating the virus. He say the, the Tiara is actually still able to deploy even right now with the, with all the sailors being moved off and they're working out to find places for the crew in Guam, including commercial hotel room. The problem is that not every ship has the ability to test and the Navy really doesn't know where this virus started. Speaker 1: 04:50 Why can't they evacuate the entire carrier? Speaker 3: 04:53 Well, there are some reasons for that. And the secretary of the day, we actually addressed that directly, uh, in a Pentagon briefing just in the last 24 hours. Speaker 4: 05:01 This ship has weapons on it. It has munitions on it, it has expensive aircraft and it has a nuclear power plant. It requires a certain number of people on that ship to maintain the safety, uh, insecurity of the ship. Speaker 3: 05:12 2,700 of the nearly 5,000 crew will be moved off. They'll rotate back on as soon as they pass through 14 days of observations. A lot of families in San Diego were in fact there. A lot of groups are now doing care packages for those families here in San Diego. Speaker 1: 05:27 Now in another story you were following, the U S Marine Corps is keeping up training at the recruit Depot in San Diego while the East coast recruit training has been suspended. Tell us about that. So Speaker 3: 05:41 West coast boot camp at MCRD says they will remain open to new recruits. They took an a new class Monday night at the same time, the comment of the Marine Corps, David Berger shut down Paris Island in North Carolina. After several recruits tested positive there and not just bootcamp last week, the seals paused. Hell week yesterday, the Marines halted training of military police. The way this works is that throughout the military, every command and makes its own decisions. So that extends all the way down to individual commanders who deem like who is essential and who is non-essential. And that determines like who can go home and work from home and who has to come in. It could make responding to the virus seem really erratic at times. Speaker 1: 06:22 Have any recruits here tested positive for coven 19 Speaker 3: 06:26 no. Recruits have tested positive, but anyone in there is someone in an office that they say has no contact with recruits or drill instructors that did test positive and they are isolating at home. Speaker 1: 06:38 Has the Marine Corps introduced social distancing at a, at MCR day? Speaker 3: 06:43 You know, it's really tough to do that, but they are isolating these new recruits for 14 days upon arrival. They eat, sleep and go to class separately from the rest of the classes. And for the rest of the recruits, they are trying to space out the bunks. They're even spacing people out at the rifle ranges on board camp Pendleton Speaker 1: 07:02 and the Marine recruits are flying here on commercial airlines despite a military travel ban. Speaker 3: 07:09 Right. So San Diego takes in recruits from West of the Mississippi, including hard-hit areas like Washington state. The rest of the military is on a stop movement order for 60 days. So there are plenty of San Diego sailors who were just trapped on the East coast and can't report the new duty stations here. At the same time, you still have recruits lying into San Diego. Speaker 1: 07:31 And why is it so important for the Marines to keep up recruit training in the middle of a pandemic? Speaker 3: 07:36 Right? So they're saying this is all about maintaining operational readiness. This is the same reason they're saying that the tr can actually deploy even during this, uh, during this crisis. So it, it takes up to a year to produce a Marine. And on the West coast they're saying that they don't want to slow that training pipeline. Speaker 1: 07:56 I've been speaking with KPBS military reporters, Steve Walsh and Steve. Thank you. Thanks Maureen.
