Senior military officials said early on during the coronavirus pandemic that they believed the fit, younger demographic of the active-duty military component would put up a strong fight against COVID-19. As the country enters its next month in the fight against the virus, it would seem those officials may be correct.
As of May 1, the general United States population reported a recovery rate of 12.25 percent among its 1.11 million confirmed COVID-19 cases. As for deaths, 5.88 percent of those diagnosed with COVID-19 died from it.
Rates within the Department of Defense are significantly different.
Can you guess who's at the top of the DoD's COVID-19 testing priority list?
Across all of DoD, about a third of those diagnosed with COVID-19 have recovered. And one-third of one percent or .3 percent have died. Within the active-duty component, the fatality rate is far lower at .04 percent.
Navy IDs Arkansas sailor as 1st active-duty COVID-19 death
Certain components within the Defense Department have been more significantly impacted than others. The total hospitalization rate across the DoD is around 4 percent -- but 14 percent of contractors with COVID-19 have been hospitalized. In addition to showing the highest hospitalization rate, contractors also have the highest fatality rate at 1.62 percent.
And while the active-duty component is recovering relatively quickly with 31 percent of its COVID cases recovered, it has a lower recovery rate than any other component. Dependents have the highest recovery rate with 36.3 percent.
As with all COVID-19 data, the lack of widespread testing and continuous discrepancies in reported data must be taken into account -- there's really no telling how accurate the data is without knowing exactly how many COVID-19 cases exist within either population. But so far, the data reported by the Department of Defense indicates that the force is handling COVID-19 better than the general U.S. population even as deployments, trainings, recruiting and global operations continue.
As COVID-19 cases increase, DoD extends stop-movement order to June 30
As of Friday, the DoD reported a total of 7,145 total COVID-19 cases across the force. In total, the virus has claimed 27 members of the DoD community.
--
Reach Elizabeth Howe on Twitter @ECBHowe.
Want to get more connected to the stories and resources Connecting Vets has to offer? Click here to sign up for our weekly newsletter.
