The damage caused by COVID-19 to navies continues to increase. The USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) aircraft carrier gave the first victim since the outbreak of pandemic in the open seas. The issue became more concrete when USS Theodore Roosevelt's captain Brett Crozier anchored the ship to the Guam Naval Base. Thomas Modly, Deputy Secretary of the US Navy, dismissed the captain who said “we are not at war, there is no need to die,” and then had to resign. Following these developments, the first death from COVID-19 occurred on the Roosevelt aircraft carrier.
In a written statement from the US Navy, a sailor was taken to intensive care on the island of Guam on March 30. The statement did not include the name and rank of the sailor who lost his life. In the meantime, it was learned that the number of patients caught COVID-19 on the ship exceeded 550.
According to a photo that was reflected on social media in the past days, the ship's crew was sleeping in a dormitory, too crowded to allow social isolation. Crozier, the dismissed captain of Roosevelt, also argued that the measures taken against the epidemic were not suitable for implementation.
On the other hand, the French Charles de Gaulle was seen as an epidemic on the aircraft carrier, and the ship took a break from NATO mission in the Atlantic and headed for France. A further epidemic occurred after three US aircraft carriers.
