Shake-up in US Navy amid virus outbreak

The acting secretary of the US Navy resigned on Tuesday for bungling the firing of a captain on a coronavirus-stricken aircraft carrier who had sent a memo warning of an outbreak on the ship.

Thomas Modly, a Naval Academy graduate and former helicopter pilot, resigned on the same day that three states — New York, New Jersey and Louisiana — reported their highest daily death tolls from the COVID-19 outbreak.

Earlier Tuesday, US President Donald Trump announced plans to put a hold on US funding for the World Health Organization (WHO).

"The WHO really blew it. For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China centric. We will be giving that a good look," Trump wrote on Twitter.

At the outset of a coronavirus task force briefing at the White House on Tuesday night, Trump reiterated what he said in the tweet:

"We're going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO. We're going to put a very powerful hold on it, and we're going to see.''

But minutes later, he walked back his threat, telling reporters that he was "looking into it" and that a global pandemic was "maybe not" the best time to freeze funding for the international organization.

"The WHO is underfunded as it is. Denying them funding based on their correct criticism of US failures to respond adequately to the coronavirus pandemic is deeply damaging to global public health," Dr Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, tweeted Tuesday.

Modly submitted his resignation letter to Defense Secretary Mark Esper after meeting with him, a defense official with knowledge of the meeting said.

"He resigned on his own accord, putting the Navy and Sailors above self so that the USS Theodore Roosevelt, and the Navy as an institution, can move forward," Esper said in a statement.

Modly resigned after flying nearly 8,000 miles to Guam on Sunday where he berated thousands of sailors aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt in a profanity-laced speech in which he called the ship's fired captain "stupid''.

He apologized on Monday night: "Let me be clear, I do not think Captain Brett Crozier is naive nor stupid," he said in a statement. "I think, and always believed him to be the opposite. We pick our carrier commanding officers with great care.''

But it wasn't enough to stop a swift backlash in Congress, where there were calls for his resignation and an investigation.

Trump said Tuesday night at a news briefing that "I would not have asked'' Modly to resign.

"I didn't speak to him, but he did that I think just to end that problem. And I think in really many ways that was a very unselfish thing for him to do," Trump said.

The turmoil began after a virus outbreak forced the aircraft carrier, which was deployed in the Pacific Ocean, to dock in Guam and begin quarantining sailors from the ship.

Crozier sent the letter asking for help from Navy leadership on March 30, and Modly fired Crozier three days later over his decision to email the letter to several Navy personnel rather than using official secured channels.

Crozier left the carrier to jeers and applause of crew members.

On the carrier, Modly said Crozier was "too na?ve or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this''. He also rebuked the crew for having cheered their captain as Modly left the ship.

Modly's apology for his remarks came hours after Trump vowed to look into the matter. Trump said Modly's remarks on the ship were "rough" and pledged to get involved in the case.

On Tuesday, New York state, the center of the crisis in the US, reported its highest number of deaths in a single day — 731 fatalities on Monday, the largest number of deaths in a single day from the virus since the crisis began.

New Jersey and Louisiana also recorded their highest daily tolls from the virus on Monday, with 232 deaths and 70 deaths, respectively.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that social distancing practices were working and that they had to continue. The governors of California and Ohio also said social-distancing measures appeared to be helping slow the rate of infection in their states.

But the high body count in New York state followed two days in which the numbers appeared to have leveled off. Cuomo emphasized that the death rate was a lagging indicator, and pointed to a falling rate of hospitalizations. He also said that the state was still projecting that the spread of the virus was plateauing.

Confirmed infections in the US were more than double that of any other nation, at nearly 387,000, according to data Tuesday from Johns Hopkins University. Deaths from the respiratory disease caused by the virus rose to more than 12,000 among Americans, while 20,191 have recovered.

Globally, the number of confirmed cases rose to more than 1.4 million, while deaths topped 81,000, according to the Johns Hopkins data. Nearly 298,000 people have recovered.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's condition was "stable" during his first night in intensive care with the coronavirus, his official spokesperson said Tuesday afternoon.

A government spokesman said the 55-year-old politician was in stable condition and breathing without the help of a ventilator but receiving oxygen.