With deployment over, Truman carrier strike group being kept at sea due to COVID-19

[nitpicker]

https://www.navytimes.com/2020/04/13/with-deployment-over-truman-carrier-strike-group-being-kept-at-sea-due-to-covid-19/

With deployment over, Truman carrier strike group being kept at sea due to COVID-19

J.D. Simkins

1 day ago

The Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group’s deployment may have drawn to a close, but the flattop carrier and its escorts are being ordered to remain at sea in an effort to keep sailors protected from exposure to COVID-19.

The group, which was set to return to Norfolk, Virginia, after completing a deployment to U.S. 5th and 6th Fleet areas of operation, will instead remain on call in the Western Atlantic in case the need for a rapid response forward deployment arises, Navy officials confirmed.

“The ship is entering a period in which it needs to be ready to respond and deploy at any time,” Vice Adm. Andrew Lewis, commander U.S. 2nd Fleet, said in the Navy release. “Normally we can do that pierside, but in the face of COVID-19, we need to protect our most valuable asset, our people, by keeping the ship out to sea.”

Rear Adm. Andrew Loiselle, commander of Carrier Strike Group 8, acknowledged that an extension might not come as welcome news to crew members, some of whom departed Norfolk in September for a deployment largely devoted to keeping tabs on Iran. The deployment was the carrier Truman’s third overseas cruise in the last four years.
(snip)

In addition to the strike group’s aircraft carrier namesake, the guided-missile destroyers Forrest Sherman, Farragut, and Lassen, as well as the guided-missile cruiser Normandy, are currently at sea.

Navy officials expect to update crew and family members of the evolving situation in “approximately three weeks,” the release said.
(snip)