[3] When Admiral Kurt W. Tidd retired, Davidson received the title of "Old Salt", conferred upon the longest-serving surface warfare officer in the U.S.

On March 5, 2020, Davidson ordered the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt to conduct its long-scheduled visit to Da Nang, Vietnam.

The port call was politically important, to show United States military strength in a region increasingly unnerved by Beijing's growing territorial claims in the South China Sea.

[6] However, nearly three weeks prior, on February 14, the United States Navy had ordered all ships in the Indo-Pacific region that had made port calls to quarantine at sea for at least 14 days, the maximum incubation period for the novel coronavirus.

[7] Within days of completing the port call, sailors aboard the Roosevelt began testing positive for the coronavirus.