JBLM announces record number of positive COVID-19 cases in July
Joint-Base Lewis-McChord has seen a record number of cases of COVID-19 for one month. They expect to far exceed the number of cases they’ve seen by the end of July, said Lt. Col. Luke Mease, chief of preventive medicine at Madigan Army Medical Center.
The actual number of cases from Joint-Base Lewis McChord stopped being reported in April after the Defense Department ordered leadership not to report cases for individual service members.
According to the March 30 Stars and Stripes report: “The order issued by Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Friday is meant to protect operational security at the Defense Department’s global installations, Jonathan Hoffman, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said in a statement Monday. He said Defense Department leaders worried adversaries could exploit such information, especially if the data showed the outbreak impacted U.S. nuclear forces or other critical units.”
More than 27,000 military personnel and others had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of July 15.
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