Posted on 04/20/2020 2:42:55 AM PDT by robowombat
More Than 1,000 Sailors Test Positive for COVID-19; Service Has Highest Share of Active Duty Infections
By: Sam LaGrone April 17, 2020 12:53 PM
The Navy reported 1,017 active duty COVID-19 cases throughout the fleet, the service announced on Friday. Of those, infected sailors on USS Theodore Roosevelt account for the majority of the Navy’s active duty cases.
“As of today, 94 percent of USS Theodore Roosevelt crewmembers have been tested for COVID-19, with 660 positive and 3,920 negative results,” according to Friday’s COVID-19 report from the service. “4,059 sailors have moved ashore.”
Of the positive cases, seven sailors have been hospitalized at U.S. Naval Hospital Guam, with one admitted to the intensive care unit “for increased observation due to shortness of breath.”
On Thursday, the Navy announced the identity of a Theodore Roosevelt sailor who died from COVID-19 complications. Aviation Ordnanceman Chief Petty Officer Charles Robert Thacker Jr., 41, is the first U.S. active duty service member to die from COVID-19. In late March, Army National Guard Capt. Douglas Linn Hickok, 57, died from the virus.
Out of all of the services, the Navy has been the hardest hit by the virus. According to a Friday tally of military infections, the Navy had the largest share of active duty positive cases, with 44 percent of the 2,307 total positive cases across the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines.
The outbreak on Theodore Roosevelt has become the most visible front of the military’s fight against the virus, following the dramatic removal of the ship’s former commander, Capt. Brett Crozier, and the subsequent resignation of former Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly following pushback on his decision to relieve Crozier from his position.
The totals come as the Navy is adapting to new operating parameters defined by controlling the virus.
As lessons from Theodore Roosevelt percolate through the fleet, the Navy has published guidance to commanders and continues to publish revisions.
For formations preparing to deploy, the Navy has instituted a 14-day minimum isolation period to prevent the virus from coming aboard ships. According to the service, the isolation period with daily medical checks provides 95-percent certainty that a ship is COVID-19-free. How effective the measures will be given the high percentages of asymptomatic COVID-19 cases is unclear.
In addition to canceling liberty and keeping port calls to the barest minimum, the Navy is conforming as best it can to Center for Disease Control guidelines on ships.
“We can protect our force, we can deploy our Navy, and we will do both,” Vice Adm. Phillip Sawyer, deputy chief of naval operations for operations, plans and strategy (OPNAV N3/N5), told reporters on Wednesday. “Face-coverings, hand-washing, ship-disinfecting are now part of our daily routine throughout the Navy.”
The service is also working on how it will deal with future outbreaks on deployments.
“If you have asymptomatic person or a COVID-positive person, you isolate them, find close contacts and quarantine those. If you’re underway and you’ve got symptomatic or COVID-positive person, we’re going to transfer him or her off as quickly as we can get them to shore medical facilities,” Sawyer said. “Then you disinfect.”
How did they get it?
How much Navy does Michigan have? Selfridge ANGB has Naval Reserve but no ships or big enough boats to label as being potential risks.
Even under close working quarters less than 1/6 test positive for covid. Interesting. That is consistent with the diamond princess data.
The low hospitalization rate would be expected as likely most are young and healthy. Would be interesting to get antibody tests on the entire crew to see how many had and cleared the virus prior to testing.
ship-disinfecting - the entire damn ship is made of steel
coronavirus lasts two or three days on plastic and steel, one day on cardboard, and four hours on copper.
no wonder the thing is so contagious once it gets on board
Boys will be boys. Run all tests.
Just need one and the confines of a warship.
Even under close working quarters less than 1/6 test positive for covid. Interesting. That is consistent with the diamond princess data.
Note also that only seven sailors have been hospitalized, and one (who looks overweight) died, while the ship is placed in port and the sailors cooped up in hotel or private homes (as said another report) rather than being at sea and allowed on deck in the sun.
`Open-Air’ Treatment in 1918 During the great pandemic, two of the worst places to be were military barracks and troop-ships. Overcrowding and bad ventilation put soldiers and sailors at high risk of catching influenza and the other infections that often followed it.[2,3]
Put simply, medics found that severely ill flu patients nursed outdoors recovered better than those treated indoors. A combination of fresh air and sunlight seems to have prevented deaths among patients; and infections among medical staff.
As with the current Covid-19 outbreak, most of the victims of so-called `Spanish flu’ did not die from influenza: they died of pneumonia and other complications. - https://medium.com/@ra.hobday/coronavirus-and-the-sun-a-lesson-from-the-1918-influenza-pandemic-509151dc8065
Port call and liberty in Vietnam I think.
Insanity! These 25 year old sailors can’t work with the sniffles or a cough? Thank goodness this didn’t happen in 1942. I can see Nimitz calling off Midway and rushing back to San Francisco for proper treatment of some of his men with the flu. The navy needs to quarantine its sickly 80 year old sailors and get the heck back to work.
Testing positive is irrelevant. What are the symtoms? How many died?
Testing positive for the virus is kinda like testing positive for being a human being. Just because you haven’t been tested to see if you’re human yet, doesn’t mean you are not human.
Death and hospitalization stats are different. They don’t count how many have been tested. They count actual events. e.g. death or hospitalization.
Yes but you need to know the total number of infected to know things like the case fatality rate. This is unique because we have a group in close proximity where (nearly) the entire group has been tested. This allows us to study how the virus moves through a population. It is an rather unique opportunity to study covid
And .15% or 1 out of the 660 died, also consistent with the cruise ship numbers. Not the just the Diamond Princess, but five others as well.
yes and the diamond princess had significantly older and sicker passengers. The CFR of this thing is nowhere near as high as advertised
Close quarters in an epidemic operates similarly with greater population density - quite natural the rate of infection is higher. And, in general, most in the Navy live and work more in close quarters than the other services.
I don’t mean to be superficial, but we’re often told how obese modern people are. The nurses in that photograph from a century ago don’t exactly look fit and trim. I’ve got plenty less extra pounds on me than those girls, and yet I’m considered “obese” by modern standards.
Yes but you need to know the total number of infected to know things like the case fatality rate.
On a side note, I would not allow them to test me unless I was being admitted into a hospital.
A ship where everyone was tested may be as close as we get for some time. That’s why I find the roosevelt numbers interesting and significant
Same with the cruise ship. And in that case, there was no use of HCQ, zinc, etc. I’d really like to know, in this case, how many actually die, if any.
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