The Department of Defense identified the fifth service member to die because of COVID-19.
Army Reserve Medical Command Master Sgt. Brian Tolliver, 46, died Monday after a five-week fight with COVID-19 at the Largo Medical Center in Largo, Florida. His death marks only the fifth of a service member but already the second for the month of August.
Spc. Curtis Fort, 61, an Army reservist from Virginia was added to the COVID-19 deaths chart on August 3.
Of the five total service members killed by the virus, four were National Guard or Reserve component troops. The one active-duty service member was a sailor aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt which garnered national media attention for its outbreak for weeks.
Overall, after holding steady for the first few months of the pandemic, DoD COVID-19 deaths almost doubled in the month of July.
As of Wednesday, the DoD had reported 49,778 total COVID-19 cases across the force. The active-duty component continues to drive a steady increase in cases.
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