The U.S. 7th Fleet flagship Blue Ridge arrives in Laem Chabang, Thailand, for a regularly scheduled port visit on Feb. 23. A Wednesday order from U.S. Pacific Fleet means Navy vessels like the Blue Ridge must spend at least 14 days at sea after a port visit like that so crews can be monitored for symptoms of a deadly strain of the coronavirus. (Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Aron Montano/Navy)
Navy Times: Pacific Fleet orders at least 14-day underways for ships visiting nations in 7th Fleet AOR as coronavirus spreads
U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Adm. John C. “Lung” Aquilino has directed all vessels visiting nations in the 7th Fleet area of operations “to remain at sea for at least 14 days before pulling into another port in order to monitor sailors for any symptoms" of COVID-19, a new and deadly strain of the coronavirus.
Aquilino’s unclassified Wednesday order is part of a larger Navy effort to control the spread of a disease that emerged in China’s Wuhan City last year and now has been detected in 37 locations internationally, including cases in the United States.
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Update #1: Coronavirus Concerns Prompt PACFLEET to Impose 14-Day Gap Between Port Visits (USNI News)
Update #2: BREAKING: Navy Orders All Ships That Have Visited Nations In Pacific Region To Self-Quarantine For Coronavirus (Daily Wire)
WNU Editor: Best to be safe.
3 comments:
"Best to be safe." Excellent advice always!! Self quarantine is how we've handled contagious diseases for generations and it generally works fairly well.
Are you freaking kidding me?!?
Some, if not a large percentage of these ships WILL have one infected crew member on board who is asymptomatic still, and then what about military readiness in that region or beyond?
War simulations should be held immediately on that topic, because we have seen what happens to the passengers of quarantined cruise ships. They almost all got it in the end (as I predicted), because any ship is ill equipped to handle an airborne virus (yeah yeah, I know about air tight sealed doors on ships, but this thing might spread through air ducts, and typically unless a ship is under attack, for a few hours or so, this doors need to be opened again for air circulation, keeping people moving to get the ship going. So we know they are not equipped and we know that each of them might have one on board (or more) who might be affected. I'd consider Taiwan and other scenarios now because military readiness must be terrible in 1-2 months time if they develop like the cruise ships did
Anon,
"Are you freaking kidding me?!?"
"War simulations need to be held immediately on that tipuc..."
Actually I thought about this sort of thing before typing my post but didn't deem it worth mentioning. As one of the astronauts on the Appllo 13 mission pointed out, they did not prepare for what happened to them. As he correctly pointed out, if we prepare for every single possible contingency, "we would never leave space dock." To put in everyday terms, if we try and prepare for every possible outcome we will never actually do anything. In other words, some things are so unlikely to occur that we don't spend precious resources preparing for them. It's best to try and deal with them when they do happen.
A crew member getting sick on a ship and passing this on to his or her crewmates incapacitating much of the crew is emphatically NOT one of those things. Ship captains have recognized this challenge for centuries. In fact, it's well known that anywhere large numbers of humans gather in close quarters be they office buildings, schools, dorm rooms, apartnents, and the mother of all incubators infections HOSPITALS, that infectious diseases can spread rapidly. With reasonable precautions unique to each situation the risk can be mitigated.
Essentially its inevitable that a crewmember either when returning from leave or after returning to the ship when it leaves port will bring back a contagious disease and spread it to his or her crewmates. It's not a question of if but when something like this happens. As such, I think it experiential common sense that training for this type of scenario is already a basic part of military training.
The 14 day self quarantine is simply an extra layer of precaution. IMHO this is an outgrowth of the irrational hysteria over COVID-19 and it does add extra challenges to defense as the self-quarantine adds an extra burden to an already difficult job.
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