Pumping Those Numbers Up: Biden Says '230 Mln Thousand Americans' Died From Coronavirus

Projected president-elect Joe Biden has made yet another gaffe, once again exaggerating the number of US citizens who have died from coronavirus.

"I hope it can provide some comfort and solace to the more than 230-million-thousand families who have lost a loved one to this terrible virus this year", he said in Wilmington, Delaware, where he was delivering a speech after major media declared him president-elect.

During his speech, Biden vowed to provide a robust response to the coronavirus as the United States registered a weekend record of new daily cases.

After three days of record highs, 122,075 new cases were recorded over 24 hours, according to Johns Hopkins University. Some 991 fatalities were registered during the same time period, bringing the total death toll to 237,016.

This is not the first time that Biden has cited the wrong number of deaths from COVID-19. During a September speech at a campaign event at the National Constitution Centre in Philadelphia, the 77-year-old said "200 million have died [from coronavirus] probably by the time I finish this talk", as he criticised the Trump administration's handling of the pandemic.

In October, his running mate, Kamala Harris, had a similar slip of the tongue during a campaign stop in Charlotte, North Carolina, as she claimed that 220 million Americans had died from COVID-19 - that is 2/3 of the whole US population, according to 2019 data.