The coronavirus provides unique challenges for the US Navy, and particularly submarines and destroyers, where a large number of sailors are confined into compacted areas, just the sort of conditions people are being told to avoid.
The Navy has to be more careful about that after the fiasco this weekend on the USS Boxer. After discovering a sailor infected with the virus, the ship’s leaders ordered dozens of sailors and officers into a very cramped room to brief them. This forced 80 crew into a compact space well below CDC guidelines, risking mass exposure.
In these sorts of close conditions, one infected sailor could quickly become an entire shipload in very little time. The Navy is just starting to have the ability to engage in ship-board testing for the virus, and until that capacity is ubiquitous, it remains possible people will be infected but not tested.
Officials say social distancing is ongoing “to the maximum extent possible,” but in practice that’s not much on a submarine or other smaller ships. Keeping those ships at sea means the danger for exposure grows substantially.
… Its possible the U.S. military never fully envisioned dealing with a biological threat not overtly connected to germ warfare.
While there should be some crossover with germ warfare precautions, germ warfare seems to presume immediate and short-term threat scenarios. Furthermore, the entire personnel chain beyond and in support of vessels is under threat.
When the USS Ronald Reagan was irradiated in the Fukushima accident, a crew trained to fight nuclear war was caught similarly off-guard by a civilian accident.
While not talked about much, many of that ‘Reagan carrier crew have suffered persistent ill-effects from that radiological exposure, and some of the later crews as well.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/fukushima-fallout-the-irradiated-sailors-of-the-uss-ronald-reagan/238590/.
As a former US Navy member, I can predict how the Navy will fight the Virus – simply cancelling all shore leave and all ships at sea stay on station – at-sea replenishing will be attempted when possible and convenient.