The littoral fight ship USS Milwaukee is again at sea, the Navy introduced Monday, lower than two weeks after members of the crew examined optimistic for COVID-19.
The ship outbreak is the primary because the arrival of vaccines and a pointy distinction from the primary main outbreak in March 2020 on the plane provider USS Theodore Roosevelt, which led to a sailor’s dying whereas others had been quarantined in lodge rooms on Guam with greater than 1,000 sailors testing optimistic for the coronavirus.
The Milwaukee, on a deployment to South America, paused in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on the day earlier than Christmas after a few of the crew examined optimistic for the illness. The Related Press reported that about two dozen sailors — one-quarter of the crew — examined optimistic for COVID-19.
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The Navy introduced that the ship returned to sea Monday — 11 days after the outbreak started. Cmdr. Kate Meadows, a spokeswoman for the Navy, instructed Army.com in an e-mail that not one of the crew members had been hospitalized, left behind or swapped out with alternative sailors. The service has mentioned that the whole crew is absolutely immunized.
The story of the Milwaukee stands in sharp distinction to the 2 different publicly identified shipboard outbreaks of COVID-19. The outbreak on the Roosevelt in March, 2020 left the ship unable to return to sea till Could, practically two months of incapacitation, and the incident led to the firing of Capt. Brett Crozier, the provider’s captain, who clashed with management over the response to the outbreak.
Later, in January 2021, the destroyer USS Chafee additionally skilled a surge of COVID-19 circumstances. Navy Instances reported that 41 sailors out of a 350-person crew both examined optimistic or had been thought-about shut contacts of these contaminated.
The Hawaii-based Chafee stayed in-port in San Diego for greater than a month earlier than getting underway once more.
Within the case of the Roosevelt, vaccines had but to be developed; in the course of the Chafee outbreak, they had been accessible solely to susceptible populations.
Bradley Martin, a Rand Corp. researcher and former Navy captain who wrote a examine on the Roosevelt outbreak, mentioned the way in which the service dealt with the outbreak on the Milwaukee “seems to be an software of frequent sense and improved consciousness of COVID results.”
Martin beforehand instructed Army.com that vaccines usually are not excellent, however their energy lies in managing and mitigating the power of outbreaks.
“If Milwaukee’s underway in per week as a result of everyone feels higher it will type of show the purpose,” he famous final week.
“The departure with the crew intact appears to have demonstrated applicable threat administration and prudence on the a part of the Navy,” Martin instructed Army.com in an e-mail Tuesday.
As a part of its response, the service additionally supplied and beneficial booster pictures to the remainder of the Milwaukee crew.
A Navy message launched Dec. 22 notes that whereas booster pictures are “not obligatory,” they’re “strongly beneficial.”
“As a result of all research are converging on the necessity for a vaccine booster to make sure enduring safety, it’s basically turning into the next-shot in a collection and can probably turn out to be obligatory within the close to future,” the message added.
The Pentagon has additionally begun to suggest a booster shot for all eligible Protection Division personnel.
— Konstantin Toropin may be reached at konstantin.toropin@navy.com. Observe him on Twitter @ktoropin.
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