He very well was a regular guy but he needed to take the measures he was trained with in dealing with a bio problem plus only communicated in the chain of command. If he did all that he would have protected his crew better and not have been relieved of his command.
= = =
But the crew may have never known how he protected them.
And thus no cheering.
He sent a classified message of what was going on on unclassified email and he had the technology and training to deal with this. His removal was mandatory.