The Navy has identified the sailor who died from complications related to COVID-19 earlier this week.
“On Dec. 1, Builder 2nd Class Nathan Huff Bishop, 33, a U.S. Navy Reserve sailor assigned to Navy Operational Support Center (NOSC) Akron, Ohio, passed away at a local hospital in Canton, Ohio,” Cmdr. Ben Tisdale told USNI News on Thursday morning.
“The apparent cause of death was from complications associated with the coronavirus disease.”
Huff Bishop is the second sailor to die from complications related to the virus since the start of the global pandemic earlier this year.
In April, Chief Petty Officer Charles Robert Thacker Jr., 41, died in a hospital in Guam after contracting the virus while serving aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71).
Huff Bishop enlisted in the Navy in 2005 and reported to his first command Naval Mobile Construction Battalion One (NMCB 1) in Gulfport, Miss., in 2006. He moved to the reserves in 2007.
He deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan from March 2010 to July 2011.
“Huff Bishop’s last tour of duty was with Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 25 (NMCB 25) Port Hueneme, Calif., from 2013 to present,” according to his official biography.
The Navy has been the service most visibly affected by the virus due to the March outbreak on TR. Since the start of the pandemic, the service has seen a cumulative total of 17,036 cases in sailors, with 2,817 active cases as of Wednesday, according to data from the service. Its civilian workforce has a cumulative total of 5,369 cases since the start of the pandemic and 1,329 active cases, with a total of 22 deaths from complications related to the infection.
Across the military, the Pentagon reports 80,592 total infections, 834 troops currently hospitalized, 49,472 recovered and 12 deaths, according to a Wednesday morning report from the Department of Defense.
