Most people think it was a good call but it also may have compromised the safety of the carrier because now it's known they may be operating under less than perfect condition.
It's pretty clear he was canned by a political appointee for political reasons.
Also, although he was relieved of command, he wasn’t “fired” or “canned” or discharged from the Navy. He will undoubtedly go into an early retirement with a full pension at his current rank of Captain. That doesn’t change the fundamental unfairness of how he’s been treated, but he’s going to be fine. And I think he knew and accepted the consequences of his actions.
Or was he discharged on evidence or assumption he leaked to the press himself?
(And not just in the Navy)
From all I could gather from Europe, I believe he acted as a human more than a robot and under the given circumstances it was the right call.
And in order to actually act they had to leak it because silently acting on it involves getting a refusal from their commanders and also writing an email. It's monkeys all the way up.
Basically, the military chain of command has ALWAYS really cared about how you handle these things. He violated it, and my military friends generally feel he did the "right" thing, but many also feel he knew what was coming and should take his punishment, because you just don't do it. While, at the same time, our government has shown an increasing desire to centralize authority and cover up for political reasons. So, I can see both sides, for sure. "You should never do that" meets "doing that is the right and moral thing in this environment". Fine.
The guy who called him out basically said a bunch of uncool and undisciplined shit about him, VERY publicly, and had to resign under pressure. He could have kept his job if he had toed the "outside of the chain of command" line and kept his cool. But he couldn't resist running his mouth in exactly the "uncool and outside of the military's expected behavior" manner. Again, the MO of the current administration.
Sources: https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-residents-say-chinese-...
https://www.france24.com/en/20200331-stacks-of-urns-in-wuhan...
For comparison, the french air carrier did not leak about the situation even though the same number of soldiers got it