During a speech in Michigan on Wednesday, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden incorrectly stated that more than 6,000 members of the military have died from COVID.
In his speech, Joe Biden was reading statistics from his notes. Somehow he managed to get the numbers unbelievably wrong.
“Military COVID infected: 118,984. Military COVID deaths: 6,114,” the former vice president read.
The Department of Defense statistics blow these claims out of the water.
DOD statistics show that the number of military COVID infections is less than half of the number that Biden claims, just 40,026. He also significantly overstated the number of COVID deaths in the military, which is only 7.
As of now, the campaign is claiming that Biden mistakenly read the numbers for Michigan as the military numbers. This may be the case, although the COVID death toll for Michigan is closer to 6,800.
Definitely Not His First “Mistake”
Many people on Twitter and in alternative media have pointed out that this is not the first time that the former vice president made an error when citing numbers.
In June, Biden somehow thought that 120 million people had died from COVID in the United States. In a speech, he said: “People don’t have a job, people don’t know where to go, they don’t know what to do. Now we have over 120 million dead from COVID.”
Former Harvard Professor Daniel Baranowski also brought up Biden’s claim during the Democrat primary that 150 million Americans had died from gun violence:
Now here's something to laugh at! Biden & numbers.
Remember when Joe said 150,000,000 Americans had died from gun violence?
Add this to Joe's Hall of Shame numbers.
Joe claims 6,114 military died from COVID-19.
The real number is 7!https://t.co/fwxvOlFk91
— Daniel F. Baranowski (@DFBHarvard) September 10, 2020