US Navy ship with over 60 sailors infected with coronavirus has sailed into San Diego, California, to decontaminate, making it the second American warship temporarily put out of service by the pandemic.
The number of coronavirus cases aboard the USS Kidd rose to 64, with 63 percent of the ship’s crew of more than 300 having been tested, the Navy said in a statement Tuesday.
The crew will be evacuated and quarantined and the ship will undergo a “strategic deep-cleaning regimen,” it said.
The first sailors on board the Kidd began experiencing symptoms last Wednesday. News of the outbreak became public Friday.
The Kidd is the second Navy ship to have a CIVID-19 outbreak, the other being the USS Theodore Roosevelt, an aircraft carrier that has been docked at Guam for a month.
All of Roosevelt’s crew has been tested and 969 found positive for the coronavirus. One sailor died.
Navy Captain Brett Crozier, who commanded the Roosevelt, was fired on April 2 for sending an email to commanders pleading for faster action to protect his crew from the coronavirus outbreak.
The crisis being triggered by the coronavirus is the biggest facing Navy leadership since two crashes in the Asia Pacific region in 2017 that killed 17 sailors.
Source: AFP
