The USS Theodore Roosevelt will return to sea later this week, nearly two months after the ship was forced to dock here on Guam to deal with the coronavirus outbreak on board.
The Navy does not reveal operational details and the exact date of the ship’s departure has not been announced.
But ABC News and other national media outlets quote unnamed military officials as saying that the aircraft carrier will leave Guam in the next few days.
The Roosevelt’s Captain, Carlos Sardiello, is quoted as saying the crew is making final preparations to depart with a scaled-back crew of 3,000, leaving nearly 2,000 other sailors behind in quarantine at Naval Base Guam.
That includes more than a dozen sailors who recently tested positive again, just days after returning to the ship.
Captain Sardiello said he was confident that the ship will still be able to conduct missions as it resumes its deployment in the western Pacific over the next few months.
Parts of the ship have been re-configured to create one-way corridors, spaced out berthing areas for the crew, and expanded mess hall hours so fewer sailors are in the mess at any one time.
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