The guided missile destroyer USS Chafee is seen anchored as a group of Vietnamese navy’s officers attend a disaster control training with US sailors at Tien Sa port in the central city of Danang on April 25, 2012. Three US 7th Fleet’s ships including also the flagship USS Blue Ridge and the rescue and salvage ship USNS Safeguard are holding a five-day non-combatant naval exchange with Vietnamese navy in the port city of Danang. AFP PHOTO/HOANG DINH Nam (Photo credit should read HOANG DINH NAM/AFP via Getty Images)
The Navy has announced about a dozen personnel assigned to a Pearl Harbor destroyer, now in San Diego, have tested positive for COVID-19 and were removed from the ship.
Cmdr. Sean Robertson said that crew members aboard the USS Chafee who were in close contact with the infected sailors are also off the ship and in quarantine while monitoring symptoms, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported. None of the sailors have been hospitalized and all positives are in isolation in accordance with U.S. Pacific Fleet Guidance.
“To reassure sailors and their families, all Chafee sailors will be tested [Friday],” Robertson said, adding that there are about 350 people on the destroyer. “The ship remains able to meet its mission.”
Robertson also said most of the crew members assigned to USS Chafee have been placed in a Restriction-of-Movement (ROM) status in hotels in the San Diego.
The announcement came a few months after about a quarter of the crew of the Pearl Harbor destroyer USS Michael Murphy tested positive for COVID-19 in November.
That vessel was doing local operations but was in port when the virus was detected. At the time, the Navy said there were no hospitalizations, but all close contacts and nonessential crew members underwent a two-week self-isolation period.
Several COVID-19 cases were also reported on the Pearl Harbor destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer, officials said.
California
The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command reported in November that the number of confirmed cases within the military community in Hawaii was “a little below 7%” of the state's total since the pandemic began in March.
Confirmed COVID-19 cases in the military are reported within the daily state totals, but a military breakdown is not made public. The Pentagon claimed doing so could communicate to foes where they were hardest hit.
