Biden goofs up Covid-19 deaths again, says 200M Americans died while actual toll is below 200K
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Sunday, September 20, added to his long list of gaffes in the run-up to the presidential election 2020. The 77-year-old former vice president declared that nearly 200 million Americans have perished in the coronavirus pandemic while the actual number of casualties is just below 200,000. The total population of the US is just over 330 million. More than 6.8 million people have been affected by the virus, the most for any country in the world.
Biden came up with his bizarre claim while making a speech at a campaign event at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. The presidential election is now less than a month-and-half away with both the major rivals -- President Donald Trump and Biden -- revving up their attacks on each other.
Biden, who has been fiercely attacking the president over his administration’s coronavirus response, spoke the same at his Sunday speech where he made the accidental claim. “If Donald Trump has his way, the complications from Covid-19, which are well beyond what they should be - it's estimated that 200 million people have died -- probably by the time I finish this talk,” said the veteran politician, whose cognitive ability has often been mocked by the Trump camp.
Not the first time
This is not the first time that Biden has goofed up numbers. In May, he said 600k Americans died in the pandemic while the actual number then was only around 67,000. In June, he claimed that 120 million people died of coronavirus while the real figure then was around 122,000.
More recently, the former Delaware senator said during a campaign in Michigan that 6k members of the US military have died from the virus. His campaign later clarified that he mixed up the numbers for the state with those for the armed forces (only seven members of the army actually died).
In February, Biden said in the final primary debate of his Democratic Party that 150 million Americans have lost their lives in gun violence. His campaign later clarified to say that the actual number was 150,000. President Trump has slammed Biden for his gaffes over the Covid-19 toll. He has said in the past “if I ever said something so mortifyingly stupid” and “this is beyond a normal mistake”. But the GOP leader himself also came under criticism for making similar gaffes a number of times in the past, like referring to 9/11 attacks as “7/11” during a rally ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Both the candidates, in their 70s, have come under the scanner with one recent poll even suggesting that both the candidates were deemed unfit by voters in six key states. While Trump made history by becoming the oldest man to become the president in 2016 at the age of 70 plus, whoever wins this time will better that record while taking the oath on January 20 next year. Another poll conducted by Fox News showed that more than half of the Americans considered Biden mentally more sound than Trump to serve as the president.