SAN DIEGO — A sailor recently cleared to return to duty on the USS Roosevelt has tested positive for COVID-19. The sailor was aboard the carrier, but has since been removed from the ship, according to CBS News.
An outbreak of the coronavirus led to the San Diego-based ship being taken out of service and docked in Guam for more than a month. Now, a sailor cleared to be brought on board, may have exposed other sailors and crew to the virus again.
While this may seem on the surface likely to delay the ship and crew getting back to work, it may turn out to be the opposite.
According to a senior Navy official that spoke with CBS News, all 4,800 crew members are not on the ship right now, but the ship may not wait for all of them to return before being cleared to return to duty.
Instead they’ll just wait for necessary sailors with the right skills to operate the USS Roosevelt to return.
The Navy stopped providing updates on the status of cases, the last update was on April 30. At that time there were than 1,100 active cases among the 4,800 sailors on board.