Top Stories 2020: COVID-19 Pandemic
December 28, 2020 11:39 AM
Sailors prepare to man the rails as the Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier, USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), returns to Yokosuka, Japan following a six-month underway period. US Navy Photo
This post is part of a series of stories looking back at the top naval news from 2020.
The coronavirus pandemic affected almost everything the Navy did in 2020, from the way the service deploys forces, to the way its contractors built ships and weapons, to the way sailors and officers were educated and trained.
The outbreak on USS
Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) gained the most attention due to the scale of the outbreak – more than 1,200 personnel were infected – and the political fallout – the ship’s captain was fired by then-Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly, who then, in turn, was fired for his handling of the outbreak. Though garnering less attention, dozens of other ships and bases saw cases, too, which they had to quickly quell with new and evolving Navy protocol before they spread out of control.