Fact Check: Mike Pence Says 60 Million Americans Got Swine Flu

CLAIM: Vice President Mike Pence claimed 60 million Americans got the swine flu.

VERDICT: True.

Pence claimed during Wednesday night’s vice presidential debate at the University of Utah that “60 million Americans contracted the swine flu” in 2009.

“We actually do know what failure looks like in a pandemic. It was 2009. The swine flu arrived in the United States. Thankfully it ended up not being as lethal as the coronavirus,” Pence said.

“But before the end of the year, when Joe Biden was vice president of the United States, not seven and a half million people contracted the swine flu, 60 million Americans contracted the swine flu,” he added.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the science is on Pence’s side.

Between April 12, 2009, and April 10, 2010, right in the middle of the Obama administration’s first term, the CDC estimated there were 60.8 million cases of the swine flu in the U.S. and 12,469 fatalities from the virus, according to CDC data.

Pence went on to predict how many lives would have been lost had the swine flu had an impact in 2009 that the coronavirus is currently having on the American people.

“If the swine flu had been as lethal as the coronavirus in 2009, when Joe Biden was vice president, we would have lost two million American lives,” Pence said.