The number of confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. has now exceeded the number of Americans who died in the Vietnam War as of Wednesday morning.
John Hopkins University’s COVID-19 tracker reports that 58,355 people have died from the virus. By contrast, 58,220 American service members died during the Vietnam War from 1955 to 1975, per the government’s National Archives.
On Tuesday afternoon, President Donald Trump bragged about his travel ban on China in late January, claiming that it had been an effective response to the pandemic.
“Whether it was luck, talent, or something else, we saved many thousands of lives,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.
