The Department of Defense reported an additional service member death this week marking nine fatalities in as many months.
The ninth death was added to the DoD's COVID-19 data on Wednesday with no additional information. The National Guard confirmed that the additional fatality was an airman with the Texas Air National Guard, but the identity has not yet been released.
The additional death is the first since Sgt. 1st Class Mike Markins, 48, died Sept. 29.
Despite this most recent death, military service members are still exhibiting far lower fatality rates than the general population. While service member deaths have now surpassed that of dependents, that mortality rate among military personnel is currently 0.017%. Among dependents, the mortality rate is 0.12%.
Of all DoD components, the civilian component has reported the most COVID-19 fatalities with 68 as of Wednesday, bringing the total number of fatalities across the DoD to 111. 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 a total of 86,735 cases of COVID-19 across the force. The vast majority of these cases -- as has been the case since the very beginning of the pandemic -- are among service members. Close to 59,000 service members from every branch have been confirmed as COVID-19 positive.
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