US Navy Nearly Done Scrubbing USS Roosevelt, Might Clean Fired Captain’s Record As Well

By Staff, Agencies

The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, which experienced a COVID-19 outbreak while at sea, is more than 80% clean, the Navy announced Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a popular campaign is pushing for the ship’s former captain, who was fired after raising alarm about the outbreak, to be reinstated, and the Navy says it’s still weighing the idea.

"We have cleaned over 2,000 spaces so far and have cleaned over 80 percent of the ship," Cmdr. Chad Hollinger, the Roosevelt's weapon's officer, said in a Wednesday news release by the Navy.

"I couldn't be more proud to take on the task of leading this team and I couldn't have asked for a better team to get this done. It hasn't been easy; it's hard work, but we are fighting through it. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and we are going to get there."

As the cleaning crews move through the 1,092-foot-long warship, they seal off each section, explained Hollinger, whom the crew has taken to calling “Mr. Clean.”

"I have been here since day one of bleach-a-palooza," said one sailor tasked with creating and dispersing cleaning solution to the scrubbing crews. "It's an all hands effort, and everyone is trying their best. Supply and medical work hand-in-hand to monitor every department on the ship to make sure they're cleaning twice a day. If they want to clean after hours, we support that as well."

"We supply gloves, rags, bleach, buckets and any other items needed to support the mission," the sailor said. "It's important to make sure every department gets what they need while also supporting the cleaning task force who clean all day."

However, the cleaning process has been fraught with problems as well, with the sailors exposed to toxic chemicals without proper protection.

On April 8, the San Francisco Chronicle exposed that Roosevelt crew members were scrubbing their ship wearing “minimal protective equipment,” with latex gloves being the only protection supplied to them, forcing them to fashion homemade masks out of t-shirts, relatives of the crew told the paper.

The COVID-19 outbreak on the Roosevelt began in the Philippine Sea in mid-March, about two weeks after the ship left Da Nang, Vietnam. By the time the Roosevelt had pulled into Guam, several dozen cases had been detected, and the ship’s then-commander, Capt. Brett Crozier, penned a frantic letter to Navy leaders pleading for support in quarantining his thousands of crew members.

After that letter was leaked to the press, Crozier was fired, and soon afterward, then-acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly quit amid a firestorm that followed his damning criticisms of Crozier and the Roosevelt’s crew.