Navy Bets On Isolation To Ward Off COVID As Military Opens Up During Coronavirus
Speaker 1: 00:00 While the rest of the country begins to open up the Navy continues to update its own response to the coronavirus, with policies that lean heavily on isolation. The Navy has tried to learn from a recent embarrassing episode when the virus spread uncontrollably through the carrier, the USS Roosevelt KPBS, military reporter, Steve Walsh has that story Speaker 2: 00:20 on April 23rd, a sailor from the USS kid was diagnosed with COVID-19 the second outbreak on board, a Navy ship commander. Michael Kaplan was that the Navy medical center in Jacksonville, Florida, his team was flown to El Salvador Speaker 1: 00:34 where the Navy destroyer was anchored off the coast. So we were, we were there within hours of that positive test result. So they found out the night before we got there, that the patient they had sent off the shift back to, I think it was Texas. I tested positive for COVID. We got the call the next morning. And we were there that afternoon. By the time they arrived, the ships medical team had isolated 20 to 30 sailors who were showing symptoms. It was actually kind of, um, somewhat of a surreal situation. Uh, we didn't really have much time to think about what we were getting into it, which is probably a good thing. Um, not too many people would probably want to run into a burning building building, and that's probably the best analogy Speaker 2: 01:08 and it's not an overstatement. The Navy has had the most cases of any of the services. Roughly half of it it's more than 2000 cases have come from outbreaks onboard two ships, the carrier USS Roosevelt, and a month later on board, the USS kid, one of the lessons learned from the Roosevelt. The Navy moved quickly to track down everyone who was sick on board. The kid, again, Navy Dr. Michael Kaplan. Speaker 1: 01:33 That was exactly our plan is to try to test a hundred percent of the crew as quickly as possible. So they work 24 seven around the clock from the moment we got there until the time we left and it took us about three and a half days to get everybody on board. Over 300 people tested, Speaker 2: 01:48 the Pentagon is now loosening coronavirus virus restrictions, but the Navy remains particularly vulnerable to an outbreak. Keeping the virus away from sailors is a constant challenge. The new Navy buzz phrase is creating the bubble. The isolates sailors in small groups in may. The Navy seals use the bubble to justify reopening portions of its notoriously grueling basic training, including hell week in this 2011 footage of seal training, it does serve shown, being pushed to the brink of collapse. I'm at our Bart. Randall says the Navy can keep sailors crammed together during training because the cadets are isolated from other classes and from the rest of the base, Speaker 3: 02:28 those guys, that bubble is solid. We are increasing all of the social distancing in our classrooms, in the chow hall. There's some things that we just, we're not going to change these standards though. We're not changing the quality of training. Speaker 2: 02:43 The Navy is still ramping up testing. It's been a struggle. The Naval health research center was granted authority to test by the CDC on February 12th, but it took another two weeks before hospitals figured out a process for getting samples to the lab. It says dr. Chris, Speaker 4: 03:00 the case definition in the beginning was very limiting, right? So you had to have specific travel to move on China and, and other limitations, or at least contact with someone that, that met, uh, the Cobra definition. So meeting that narrow case definition, um, may have been problematic in the beginning Speaker 2: 03:17 with each month, the test themselves are getting faster. The test used on the kid showed results in 15 minutes as dr. Kaplan who responded to the initial outbreak testing is still the only way to find out if people have the virus, but who don't show symptoms. That includes roughly half of the, some 90 cases found on the kid. Speaker 1: 03:37 I ship is a tough place to have an outbreak, but again, we actually were able to implement a number of different steps to try to mitigate the spread that hopefully other, other ships in the future, we're going to make it part of their standard operating procedures, such as you know, routine cleaning. Speaker 2: 03:52 The Navy is also keeping vessels at sea to prevent the crew from coming into contact with the virus. The carrier USS Nimitz is currently in San Diego, but the sailors are not allowed to leave their ship. The entire crew were sequestered in Washington state for nearly a month prior when they leave San Diego, ports of call will be canceled. Even pilots that fly into deliver supplies will have to be isolated for two weeks to preserve the Navy's new bubble. Steve Walsh, KPBS news. Speaker 1: 04:22 This story was produced by the American Homefront project, a public media collaboration that reports on American military life and veterans funding comes from the corporation for public broadcasting. Speaker 5: 04:39 [inaudible].
