The US Treasury sent checks designed to help stimulate the economy devastated by Covid-19 to more than one million dead people, AFP reported, citing a government watchdog report.

The independent Government Accountability Office said that, since the Treasury began sending out cash to taxpayers in April to counter massive job losses due to the coronavirus pandemic, 160.4 million economic impact payments worth $269 billion have been made.

However, by April 30, when 120 million payments had been completed, payments worth $1.4 billion had been sent to 1.1 million dead people, according to the GAO.

It was not clear how many of those were due to mistakes in the Treasury's systems and how many were deliberate fraudulent claims.