From April through June, the Department of Defense reported 17,116 cases of COVID-19 across the force. In July alone, the Pentagon reported another 14,657 cases -- a more than 85 percent increase.
DoD has largely attributed the sharp spike in cases to increased testing measures and the proximity of large bases to COVID-19 hotspots across the country including those in Texas and California.
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"We're seeing some uptick in terms of infection largely around where we're seeing that in the civilian communities," Thomas McCaffery, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs said during a press briefing at the Pentagon in mid-July. "So in Florida and Texas and Arizona, some parts of California -- that wouldn't be a surprise."
Much like the rest of the United States, the DoD is working to resume as many normal operations as possible -- "safely." But the military's rate of new COVID-19 infections is double that of the general population. The United States saw an overall 16 percent increase in new COVID-19 cases at the beginning of July. For the same period of time, the DoD reported a 33 percent increase.
The military's new COVID-19 infection rate is double the general population's
The active-duty component is largely driving the increase across the entire DoD -- although the civilian, contractor and dependent components have also seen an increase in the rate of new infections.
While the Army reported the highest number of new COVID-19 cases this month with 7,282 cases, in terms of percentage, the Air Force has seen the most significant increase in COVID-19 cases -- 101 percent, more than doubling.
These increases in new cases among the active-duty component have thus far not corresponded to sharp increases in deaths -- the active-duty component hasn't reported a new death since May 26. However, in the past 10 days, the DoD reported six additional civilian deaths, another dependent death, and two more contractor deaths.
Overall, the DoD's fatality rate is .15 percent. The death rate among the general U.S. population is about 3.6 percent, according to the most recently available data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As of Wednesday, the DoD reported 32,728 total cases of COVID-19 with 51 total deaths.
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