Despite nearly 50,000 coronavirus infections, the U.S. military has suffered only one active-duty COVID-19 death, a point that Secretary of Defense Mark Esper drove home Thursday in underscoring the armed forces’ capacity to maintain readiness amid a global pandemic.
“We’re going to get infections. They will happen out there,” Esper said at a discussion hosted by the Heritage Foundation.
“The department has been quick to minimize its impact on our forces by taking immediate action going back to January to stem the spread of the virus in our ranks,” he added. “Our infection rates were much lower than the American people.”
Esper chose not to mention the rapid contagion spread aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in March that led to the sacking of its commander and acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly. He also avoided discussing a rising suicide rate that happened at the same time that coronavirus lockdowns hit the military.
The Army confirmed to the Washington Examiner Wednesday that 20% more suicides have been recorded to date in 2020 than 2019. The Pentagon continues to withhold suicide figures for the second-quarter period from April to June, which encompasses the period when service members faced the strictest lockdowns.
The Pentagon also reported in July that infection rates among service members between the ages of 18 and 24 were actually higher than the general population.
Esper instead focused on strides made in adjusting to the reality of continuing the Defense Department’s national security mission in a COVID-19 environment.
The defense secretary received his first briefing on the coronavirus in late January. By then, U.S. Forces Korea Commander Gen. Robert Abrams was locking down his installations and imposing harsh restrictions.
The measures worked.
Only a handful of USFK soldiers were infected, and South Korea quickly climbed out of distress with thousands of daily tests early in the pandemic.
Esper touted Defense Production Act spending to the tune of $500 million to bolster the domestic industrial base and ramp up production of coronavirus testing materials, ventilators, personal protective equipment, and other essential items for the force and people in the United States.
Esper’s opening remarks also reminded listeners of the international travel stop imposed in March and held in place until May.
Training was also modified across the forces. Masks on trainees became a required part of the uniform, and future soldiers underwent isolation periods and began basic training in small groups to prevent an outbreak.
As a result, unit cohesion improved, and despite initial training stoppages, services saw lower rates of attrition and met throughput goals.
Despite the near total cancellation of what would have been the largest land exercise in Europe, Defender 20, the Pentagon found a way to keep other exercises going, including the multinational naval exercise RIMPAC in Hawaii.
Meanwhile, Defense Department laboratories ramped up their capacity, running more than 1.2 million coronavirus tests in 140 laboratories to ensure the safe deployment of soldiers overseas.
“We are testing an average of 40,000-plus service members weekly,” Esper said. “That number reached more than 54,000 earlier this year due to our robust monitoring efforts.”
This defense secretary also noted a program to collect convalescent plasma for advanced illness in the force and the collection of a total of 11,000 units.
“Train, treat, trace, and follow those protocols, and then, you have to be able to operate if you’re in some type of quarantine status,” he said. “You’ve got to be able to do your job, and we’re all capable of doing that, whether you’re the lowest private or the secretary of defense.”
