Donald Trump: "Only 6% of the people actually died from COVID"

A checked claim

Only 6% of the people actually died from COVID

Donald Trump · A Fox News interview · September 1, 2020 · Race: President of the United States

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The checks

Each in the checker's own words. This site does not restate another organization's finding in its own voice.

Pants on Fire

PolitiFact, September 3, 2020 · read the check

Our check against the record

Does not match the record

Checked against National Center for Health Statistics, COVID-19 Provisional Counts weekly update, Table 3 as published at the time of the claim: the table counts "deaths involving coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)" and says "For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned"; the other 94 percent are COVID-19 deaths with other conditions also listed, not deaths from something else.

The records: COVID-19 Provisional Counts: Weekly Updates by Select Demographic and Geographic Characteristics, Comorbidities (Table 3) · Conditions Contributing to COVID-19 Deaths, by State and Age, Provisional 2020-2023 (dataset hk9y-quqm)

Context

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention note he referred to reported how many death certificates listed conditions besides COVID-19.

Topics: COVID-19.

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Every claim filed under Donald Trump

Sources

Trump repeats false claim about COVID-19 deaths on Fox News · PolitiFact · 2020-09-03 · accessed 2026-09-25
COVID-19 Provisional Counts: Weekly Updates by Select Demographic and Geographic Characteristics, Comorbidities (Table 3) · Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics · 2020-09-02 · accessed 2026-10-16
Conditions Contributing to COVID-19 Deaths, by State and Age, Provisional 2020-2023 (dataset hk9y-quqm) · Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics · accessed 2026-10-15

Cite and data

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Cracked Buckeye, "Donald Trump: "Only 6% of the people actually died from COVID"", https://crackedbuckeye.com/claims/2020-09-01-donald-trump-only-6-percent-died/, built 2026-11-03, accessed [date].

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