Iran Press/America: Scores of people on board the Theodore Roosevelt have tested positive for the Covid-19 infection. The carrier is currently docked in Guam.
"We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die," Captain Brett Crozier wrote in a letter to the US Pentagon.
The US carrier's Captain Crozier recommended quarantining almost the entire crew. as NPR reported.
In the letter, Crozier said that with large numbers of sailors living in confined spaces on the carrier isolating sick individuals was impossible.
The coronavirus' spread was now "ongoing and accelerating", he warned, in the letter dated 30 March.
"Decisive action is needed," he said.
"Removing the majority of personnel from a deployed US nuclear aircraft carrier and isolating them for two weeks may seem like an extraordinary measure. This is a necessary risk," the captain of the carrier said.
It is not clear how many crew members on Theodore Roosevelt have the coronavirus. The San Francisco Chronicle, which first reported on the letter, said at least 100 sailors were infected.
US surpasses China in coronavirus deaths
This is while the United States passed a grim milestone on Tuesday 31 March as it surpassed China in the official death count from the coronavirus.
The United States now has 3,415 deaths from the virus, surpassing China’s figure of 3,309, according to a tracker from Johns Hopkins University.
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