• Nanda Ramchandar, Tanner Slayden, Jose A Garcia-Rivera, Daniel Crouch, Kia Gallagher, David Harris, Alison Lane, Lawrence Ha, Megan Halliday, Eddy Ruano, Daniel Treiber, Timothy Quast, and Jeffrey Feinberg.
• Uniformed Services University School of Medicine, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA.
• Mil Med. 2023 Jul 22; 188 (7-8): e2646e2650e2646-e2650.

IntroductionWe present a real-world experience of a U.S. Navy Hospital Ship deployed amid a global Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) surge and the challenges of navigating policy while maintaining a mission-focused itinerary in an operational environment.Materials And MethodsWe performed a chart review of SARS-CoV-2 cases from April 18 to September 20, 2022, within a closed population of fully vaccinated adults onboard the USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) during the 5-month 2022 Pacific Partnership mission to Guam, Vietnam, Palau, Philippines, and the Solomon Islands.ResultsThere were 123 total SARS-CoV-2 cases over the course of the mission, constituting 16.6% of the total crew (123/741). No more than 14 service members were actively infected at a given time (1.9%, 14/741). The average number of active cases at any given time was 0.8 (1.9 SD, 0.1% [0.8/741]), and just 14 of these were shipboard secondary cases. No significant operational requirements of the ship were impacted by infection-related manning shortages, there were no hospitalizations, and all infected members experienced full recovery.ConclusionsDespite ongoing cases throughout the majority of the mission, a healthy immunized crew experienced no serious cases and minimal impact on operational effectiveness.Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States 2022. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.

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