After weeks of a steadily increasing COVID-19 death toll within the Department of Defense, the number of COVID-related fatalities held steady at 27. Yesterday, after three weeks with no new deaths, DoD reported that an eighth contractor died from the virus on Monday.
The DoD’s death reporting has been consistently inconsistent. Since the DoD began publicly releasing information regarding COVID-19’s progress through the force, the number of fatalities has erroneously fluctuated with no explanation from the DoD.
The number of dependents killed by the virus dropped from one to zero over the weekend of April 4 with no explanation. The number of civilian deaths dropped from seven to six over the weekend of April 10.
While this most recent additional death certainly moves the total number of deaths in the wrong direction, the DoD -- according to its own reporting -- has effectively flattened the curve on COVID-related deaths. Compared to the general population, the DoD continues to hold up stronger against the virus with a higher recovery rate and a lower mortality rate.
Military has higher recovery, lower death rates than general US population, data shows
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. Within the DoD, on the other hand, about a third of those diagnosed with COVID-19 had recovered. And one-third of one percent had died. Within the active-duty component, the fatality rate is far lower at .04 percent.
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Reach Elizabeth Howe on Twitter @ECBHowe.
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