Joe Biden wrongly stated 6,114 military service members died from COVID-19 — he was off by 6,107

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden recently overstated by massive proportions the number of U.S. military service members who have died as a result of the coronavirus.

Speaking at a campaign rally Wednesday in Warren, Michigan, Biden said, "Military COVID infected: 118,984. Military COVID deaths: 6,114. Folks, every one of these lives mattered."

But according to the Department of Defense's website, as of Wednesday, the number of service men and women who have died from the virus was seven  meaning the former vice president was off by 6,107.

Biden also inflated the number of military infections by a whopping 79,000.
His statement was so wildly inaccurate that even CNN had to fact-check the number:
This is wrong — and not just by a little. Biden overstated the number of military Covid deaths by 6,107 and infections by nearly 79,000. There have been seven deaths in the military due to Covid-19 and 40,026 cases as of September 9, according to the Defense Department.
Before making the statement, Biden told the audience that he carries a schedule with him that shows updated figures for the number of U.S. troops lost or wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He had apparently given the schedule away but after retrieving it from a staffer, the nominee began reading the numbers.
A Biden campaign aide reportedly told CNN later that Biden had misspoke by accidentally reading the numbers of Michigan coronavirus deaths and infections instead of the military numbers.

That seems likely enough, yet nevertheless, CNN national security correspondent Holmes Lybrand noted that even those figures don't quite match up.

"The Johns Hopkins coronavirus tracker reports 6,811 deaths from the virus in Michigan, not 6,114. And the number of cases in the state, according to Hopkins, is 118,902," Lybrand wrote.

You can watch video of Biden's gaffe below, posted by the Washington Free Beacon:
Joe Biden wrongly stated 6,114 military service members died from COVID-19 — he was off by 6,107 Joe Biden wrongly stated 6,114 military service members died from COVID-19 — he was off by 6,107 Reviewed by Your Destination on September 10, 2020 Rating: 5

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