Navy COVID-19 cases pass 2,000 as military cases continue to rise

“The statistics show that the safest place to be is aboard a deployed Navy ship,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Monday during a Brookings Institution webinar, citing two out of 94 ships underway with COVID-19 outbreaks.

In addition to a lower infection rate than the general public, Esper cited the low hospitalization and mortality rates in the military: 2 percent and 0.0004 percent, respectively. Of nearly 5,000 diagnoses, 99 have been hospitalized and 1,806 have recovered so far.