"There has been a coronavirus outbreak in the Carrier Strike Group (CSG) which includes the Royal Navy flagship HMS Queen Elizabeth, it has been confirmed," the UK's Evening Standard reported last week.
"The aircraft carrier is about a quarter of the way through a 28-week deployment leading the CSG, which includes a US destroyer and 10 Marine Corps F35-B fighters, and is currently in the Indo-Pacific," the outlet continued.
Needless to say, the Royal Navy and the British Defense Ministry attempted to put the best spin possible on the outbreak.
"As part of routine testing, a small number of crew from the Carrier Strike Group have tested positive for Covid-19," said the Royal Navy in a statement.
“All personnel deployed in the UK CSG have received both doses of the Covid vaccine and there are a number of mitigation measures on board including masks, social distancing and a track and trace system The Carrier Strike Group will continue to deliver their operational tasks and there are no effects on the deployment," the statement added.
In all, about 100 sailors had tested positive for the virus despite having been fully vaccinated against it.
Not a good way to start the warship's maiden operational deployment; the Queen herself, along with Prime Minister Boris Johnson both came aboard the carrier before she departed for the Indian Ocean.
In addition to COVID aboard the Queen Elizabeth, Royal Navy officials are also investigating a suspicious death aboard a Type 23 frigate, HMS Kent, which is also part of the current task force Carrier Strike Group.
The warship outbreak comes as Johnson and British health officials consider making it mandatory to have a COVID passport in order to move about freely in society -- meaning, vaccines would essentially become mandatory for anyone in the UK who doesn't want to live as a second-class subject.
But the scheme is being met with pushback, especially from British clergy after it was reported last week that the passports would perhaps also be required for churchgoers.
In a letter to Johnson, about 1,250 clergy implored the prime minister to reconsider forcing parishioners to get a vaccine passport out of fear it would create a situation they describe as "medical apartheid."
The “introduction of vaccine passports would constitute an unethical form of coercion and violation of the principle of informed consent," the clergy said in a letter to the PM.
Noting that there are many Christians who do not want to take the vaccine due to “serious issues of conscience related to the ethics of vaccine manufacture or testing,” the letter also says that vaccine passports could go towards “creating a two-tier society, a medical apartheid in which an underclass of people who decline vaccination are excluded from significant areas of public life.”
“This scheme has the potential to bring about the end of liberal democracy as we know it and to create a surveillance state in which the government uses technology to control certain aspects of citizens’ lives. As such, this constitutes one of the most dangerous policy proposals ever to be made in the history of British politics,” the clergy warned.
The letter comes after business minister Paul Scully responded to LBC radio host Nick Ferrari over the question of whether requiring passports could be expanded beyond where they are currently mandated to include a ban on unvaccinated church-goers, "We're not ruling anything out."
Except liberty -- they are all ruling liberty out.
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