After the better part of a month where no Defense Department-affiliated personnel died of coronavirus complications, even as overall cases exploded past 8,000, a department contractor died over the weekend.
The death, the eighth for a contractor, brings DoD’s death toll to 28, according to Pentagon data.
Contractors have been hit the hardest throughout the pandemic, with a 1.5 percent death rate and 9 percent hospitalization rate in 530 total COVID-19 cases so far, 6 percent of the department’s overall diagnoses.
As of Monday, 8,636 troops, dependents, civilians and contractors have been diagnosed, for a total of 341 hospitalizations and a 0.3 percent mortality rate. Nationwide, the mortality rate is 6 percent of known cases.
Though numbers have continued to climb, the past two weeks have seen a slowdown ― particularly in non-military cases ― even as the services have begun testing some asymptomatic troops.
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The military’s 5,727 cases make up a full two-thirds of the department’s 8,636, for an infection rate among troops of just under 0.3 percent. Nationwide, the known infection rate is about 0.4 percent.
As an outbreak aboard the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, which was first sidelined in late March, resurges, 89 new sailors tested positive for COVID-19 over the weekend, bringing the service’s total to 2,294.
Comparatively, the Army ― a service with roughly 150,000 more active personnel than the Navy ― diagnosed 45 over the weekend, for a Monday total of 1,217. The Marine Corps now stands at 491, followed by the Air Force at 449, with the National Guard at 1,158.
Of those, 123 have been hospitalized — just over 2 percent ― 2,821 have recovered and two have died, for a 0.0003 percent rate.
Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members.
