Terry McAuliffe—the ex-Virginia governor fighting to get his old job back in next Tuesday’s gubernatorial election—has been repeatedly and dramatically inflating his state’s coronavirus case and hospitalization numbers, according to fact checkers at TheWashington Post. The Post’s reporters say they initially raised their eyebrows at McAuliffe’s calculations during a debate at the end of September, when he said there were 8,000 coronavirus cases “yesterday in Virginia,” but official records showed fewer than 2,000 confirmed cases. A week later, on Oct. 7, McAuliffe said 1,142 children were in ICU beds with COVID—when there were just 35 kids in hospitals, never mind intensive care. He then repeated that claim twice in subsequent weeks when, throughout the entire pandemic, Virginia has reported an overall total of 952 hospitalizations in children under 17. A spokesman for the McAuliffe campaign didn’t explain the massive discrepancy when it was raised by the Post.
