COVID Epidemic Among ‘Fully Vaccinated’ US Navy Crew Knocks USS Milwaukee out of Action – Opinion

USS Milwaukee was meant to participate in an anti-narcotics operation, in both the Caribbean Sea and in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.  It is instead moored at Guantanamo bay, Cuba to cool off. Because the COVID virus infected the ship. But it wasn’t just any outbreak; it was an outbreak among a crew that was fully immunized.

A coronavirus outbreak aboard the USS Milwaukee, whose entire crew was “100 percent immunized,” has forced the ship to remain in port after a scheduled stop in Cuba barely one week into its deployment, the Navy announced Friday.

An unspecified “portion” of the Milwaukee’s 105-person crew is isolated aboard the ship at Naval Station Guantánamo Bay, according to Cmdr. Kate Meadows, spokeswoman of the U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command. The Navy does not disclose infection counts “at the crew/unit level,” she said in an email.

Meadows explained that not all of the people who had tested positive for the disease experienced mild symptoms. Officials have not determined whether the highly transmissible omicron variant — which has demonstrated an ability to evade coronavirus vaccines, leading to a surge in breakthrough infections — is responsible for the Milwaukee’s outbreak.

Meadows did not say whether or not any infected personnel had been given booster shots. She also didn’t know if Navy officials may be considering requiring them to help prevent further outbreaks. “Boosters,” she said, “are not yet mandatory but recommended.”

The fact that the Navy refuses to disclose the number of cases leads me to believe that the number is very close to “all.” That the Navy isn’t forthcoming with the number of sailors with “boosters” is also an indication that number is “all.” We also have a sure sign that the Navy is grasping for straws on how to handle a mass infection of vaccinated sailors.

Meadows said Saturday that the ship’s commanders are working with senior military leaders to make that determination and that, in the meantime, they have imposed a mask mandate for all personnel aboard.

“When in danger, when in doubt; run in circles, scream and shout.”

So many questions need to be answered. For instance, if the symptoms are “minor,” why was the ship pulled out of a major deployment? What is the new norm for our Navy when there is a COVID crisis? How is Guantanamo helping the sailors who have contracted COVID?

Many of us know that the virus will always be with us, as we have all said since the beginning of pandemic fearmongering. The virus is part of everyday life. We must learn how to deal with it. It is fatally flawed to focus on vaccinations and not on therapy. This has resulted in a multibillion-dollar boondoggle that was a complete waste of time. All of these sailors were “fully vaccinated,” and yet there was an outbreak.

This idea of a Navy warship being rendered useless by a virus that has not been administered to the crew is simply unacceptable. It is not only a failure of “public health,” which is something of a redundancy these days but a failure of military leadership.