Coronavirus cases continue to surge out of control throughout the United States. As of this writing nearly 140,000 Americans have died due to the virus and the U.S. has confirmed in excess of 3.6 million cases, including a grim “single-day record” of more than 77,000 new cases on Thursday.
While these tragic trends and numbers are widely publicized and available, one needs to access specialized sources and publications to get a good feel for how the U.S. military are faring during the pandemic.
Here are some updates:
The U.S. military is reporting more than 20,000 coronavirus cases, distributed as follows among the Services, as of Friday (Source: Military Times)
U.S. Army: More than 6,500 Soldiers.
U.S. Navy: More than 5,200 Sailors.
U.S. Air Force: Nearly 3,000 Airmen.
U.S. Marine Corps: 2,298 Marines.
National Guard: 2,804 Guardsmen.
Across the Department of Defense, 29,047 “affiliated personnel” (dependents, civilian and contractors) have been diagnosed with the coronavirus.
One army base, Fort Campbell — on the Kentucky – Tennessee border — has made the wearing of masks mandatory within its facilities.
Some of the bases where travel restrictions had been recently lifted are in Germany, Japan, and South Korea.
In Japan, 143 US military personnel and their families in Japan have tested positive for the virus since July 1.
On Okinawa — home to about half of the 54,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan — two more U.S service members have tested positive for the virus and other cases have spread across six U.S military facilities in Japan, causing fresh strains between Japan and the U.S.
Now, tens of thousands U.S. military personnel are on virtual lockdown and Japan’s Defense Minister has “asked the U.S. to test all military-related personnel arriving into the country, regardless of whether they were showing symptoms or not.”
South Korea has also expressed concern over the growing numbers of coronavirus-infected American service members arriving in South Korea from the U.S.
In Europe, U.S. military arriving from the U.S. “have to quarantine for 14 days and can no longer test out of it…Military families and Defense Department civilians coming to Europe from international risk areas for the coronavirus, including the U.S., will also have to quarantine for two weeks…”
Military recruitment has also been affected. Both the Air Force and Army have seen and approximate 2% of new recruits test positive for the coronavirus since the onset of the virus, “most asymptomatic.” Those who test positive or show symptoms “are quarantined for 14 days…”
As they have been doing since the beginning of the pandemic, the military continue to assist states and cities in the fight against the virus. Approximately 720 military medical and support personnel are being deployed to “hotspots” Texas and California as the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise in those states.
Many of these personnel come from the U.S. Army’s Urban Augmentation Medical Task Force (lead photo), a task force that deployed to New Jersey in April to help fight the pandemic on the east coast.
Governors for 31 states and territories want to keep National Guard troops deployed on coronavirus missions into the fall — possibly to Christmas, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.
As of mid-July, there are about 29,700 Guard troops deployed across the country for coronavirus relief, according to the Defense Department.
The pandemic that sidelined the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt for 10 weeks is also adversely affecting missions at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.
Without going into specifics, Brig. Gen. Scott Cain, commander of the 96th Test Wing, said, “We have mission impacts this week that are worse than we’ve had before, and we can’t continue to have those impacts.” Cain also signaled “a toughening attitude” towards virus prevention, containment and spread measures.
Finally, even the U.S. Air Force’s fabulous aerobatics team, The Thunderbirds, has been temporarily grounded because “a few of our team members” tested positive for the virus.
The Thunderbirds were scheduled to perform in Cheyenne, Wyoming, next Wednesday as part of the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo festival.
The Thunderbirds and U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels have performed over several U.S. cities recently to foster national unity and uplift spirits amid the coronavirus pandemic.
It is hoped that they will be able to fly in the Ocean City, Maryland airshow Aug. 15-16.
