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| The aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sweeping testing of the
entire crew of the coronavirus-stricken U.S. aircraft carrier Theodore
Roosevelt may have revealed a clue about the pandemic: The majority of the
positive cases so far are among sailors who are asymptomatic, officials say.
The
possibility that the coronavirus spreads in a mostly stealthy mode among a
population of largely young, healthy people showing no symptoms could have
major implications for U.S. policy-makers, who are considering how and when to
reopen the economy.
It also renews questions about the extent to
which U.S. testing of just the people suspected of being infected is actually
capturing the spread of the virus in the United States and around the world.
The Navy’s testing of the entire 4,800-member
crew of the aircraft carrier - which is about 94% complete - was an
extraordinary move in a headline-grabbing case that has already led to the
firing of the carrier’s captain and the resignation of the Navy’s top civilian
official.
Roughly 60 percent of the over 600 sailors who
tested positive so far have not shown symptoms of COVID-19, the potentially
lethal respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, the Navy says. The
service did not speculate about how many might later develop symptoms or remain
asymptomatic.
“With regard to COVID-19, we’re learning that
stealth in the form of asymptomatic transmission is this adversary’s secret
power,” said Rear Admiral Bruce Gillingham, surgeon general of the Navy.
The figure is higher than the 25% to 50% range
offered on April 5 by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of President Donald Trump’s
coronavirus task force.
DISCONCERTING’ DATA FOR PENTAGON
Defense Secretary Mark Esper, speaking in a television interview
on Thursday, said the number of asymptomatic cases from the carrier was
“disconcerting.”
“It has revealed a new dynamic of this virus: that it can be
carried by normal, healthy people who have no idea whatsoever that they are
carrying it,” Esper told NBC’s “Today” morning show.
Such data present challenges to the Pentagon, which is deployed
around the world, sometimes in confined environments like submarines, ships and
aircraft.
Testing the entire military is not yet feasible, given
still-limited testing capacity, officials say, and detecting enough cases
without tests is impossible if most cases are asymptomatic.
The U.S. coronavirus death
toll - the highest in the world - surged past 31,000 on Thursday after doubling
in a week.
It also claimed
the life of a sailor from the Theodore Roosevelt this week. Five other members
of the crew are hospitalized.
NUMBERS UNKNOWN
Still, the case of the
Theodore Roosevelt offers a case study for researchers about how the virus
spreads asymptomatically in a confined environment among mostly younger adults.
That cohort has
been somewhat underrepresented in the epidemiological data so far, said William
Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical
Center.
“The findings
are of enormous interest because the proportion of people who are asymptomatic
is just simply not known,” Schaffner said, when asked about the Navy’s data.
Vice Admiral Phillip Sawyer, a deputy chief of naval operations
at the center of the Navy’s coronavirus response efforts, presented the 60%
figure in a call with a small group of reporters on Wednesday.
But he declined to speculate about the implications.
“I don’t know if we’re proving something different,” Sawyer
said.
“I do agree that we are providing some data that some other
organizations might not have.”
