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More sailors aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt test positive for coronavirus, officials say

More sailors aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier currently in the western Pacific have tested positive for coronavirus and officials fear the number will continue to rise.

There are now 38 Navy sailors who have been infected with COVID-19, U.S. officials told Fox News on Sunday.

Early last week, there were only three known cases aboard the massive warship with a crew of 5,000. It marked the first U.S. naval vessel at sea to have infected people onboard.

Early Friday, the "Big Stick" -- as the carrier is called -- pulled into port in Guam days ahead of schedule in order to disinfect the ship, transport infected sailors to a local hospital and order more bulk testing of the crew.

The Navy's top officer said the stop in Guam was "previously scheduled" for maintenance.

"We expect additional positive tests," Adm. Mike Gilday, chief of naval operations, said in a statement Thursday. Gilday says none of the sailors infected so far are "seriously ill."

Like cruise ships, it's nearly impossible to isolate sailors at sea or practice social distancing while launching F/A-18 Super Hornets from the flight deck or standing watch on the Nimitz-class carrier's two nuclear reactors.

"There aren't staterooms for all 5,000 sailors," one Navy official quipped.

Deploying with the carrier is the guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill and guided-missile destroyers Russell, Paul Hamilton, Pinckney, Kidd, and Rafael Peralta. Most of those warships, armed with hundreds of Tomahawk cruise missiles, will remain at sea while the carrier is moored in Guam -- a stop that could be weeks long, officials say.

The strike group visited Vietnam earlier this month after assessing the risk to the crew below, according to Navy officials.

The Navy's only other carrier in the western Pacific also has cases of the virus onboard, Fox News first reported Friday. The Japan-based USS Ronald Reagan is in port right now, and the two sailors who tested positive are no longer on board, according to officials.