Fact-Checking of Biden’s Virus Claims Made During Michigan Visit to Pfizer Plant

President Biden visited Michigan’s Pfizer manufacturing site in Portage on Friday, where he delivered remarks to the country on his administration’s efforts to scale up coronavirus vaccination across the United States.

During his first official visit to Michigan since being elected president, Biden toured Pfizer’s facilities and got a first-hand look at how COVID-19 vaccines are stored and shipped before discussing new strategies of distribution.

While Biden’s remarks on Friday were largely ambitious or congratulatory, there were a few points that needed to be verified.

Grant Herms of Local 4 featured some of Biden’s claims via our Confidence Index – see what we found below.

First, we’ll start with a claim from Biden about the administration’s efforts to increase vaccine production in the United States.

A d

Biden statement: “When we found that vaccine makers were not given top priority when it came to reviewing and securing the supplies they needed, we fixed that problem and got them what they needed. they need.”

We call this one: be careful.

The Defense Production Act is generally used to get companies to modify their production for national interests. While the Biden administration uses DPA in a more targeted manner than the Trump administration was, the Trump White House initially used it to encourage vaccine development at a time when the vaccine was far from being ready for production, and instead turned to other ways to get drug companies to work on the vaccine.

It’s fair for Biden to claim his DPAs helped speed up the supply chain, but his statement ignores some of the groundwork laid by the previous president.

Next, we look at a claim by Biden regarding the number of vaccines given each day in the United States.

A d

Biden statement: “We average 1.7 million a day. Soon we will be at 50 million, and I have no doubts that we will exceed that number.

We also call this one: be careful.

The Biden information presented in this statement requires context.

Biden was referring to his pledge to have 100 million shots of American guns administered during his first 100 days in office. The country has passed the 50 million vaccine mark around Valentine’s Day, and 50 million fully vaccinated Americans are expected by the end of March – but those vaccines are being administered. overtime, and do not take place in one day, as the president’s statement may seem to suggest.

Next, we take a look at a claim by President Biden regarding the number of Americans who are hungry amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden statement: “24 million adults, 11 million children do not have enough to eat. And unless you think I’m exaggerating, think about those scenes you saw on TV with cars lined up, that looked like miles away.

A d

We call this: true.

However, it is important to note that specific numbers are difficult to follow and the President may underestimate the problem.

It appears President Biden is using USDA figures taken during the pandemic, but before the scale of the pandemic strikes. According to nonprofit Feeding America, Biden’s numbers were right at the start of the pandemic, but they are expected to get much worse: closer to 50 million starving people, including 17 million children, for all of 2020.

Speaking of the vaccine rollout, President Biden called the Michigan grocery chain “Meijers”. We thought about this one for a long time and decided … we’re just going to stay out of this.

---

On his first visit to Michigan since being elected president, Joe Biden visited Pfizer’s Kalamazoo County manufacturing site on Friday, thanking all employees during his live remarks for their efforts to help immunize Americans against the coronavirus.

A d

After his tour of Pfizer’s largest manufacturing site, speaking to the nation, President Biden thanked Pfizer employees for their role in producing hundreds of millions of doses of the much-needed coronavirus vaccine. Biden said the advancement of COVID-19 vaccines was a “miracle of science,” especially after health experts initially thought it would take six to eight years to develop a vaccine.

After criticizing the previous administration’s lack of a national immunization strategy, Biden described his administration’s initiative to speed up production and distribution of coronavirus vaccines, which he called “the most difficult operational challenge which this country has been confronted with ”.

President Biden said the average daily number of people vaccinated in the United States nearly doubled from the week before he took office to an average of 1.7 million people receiving vaccines each day. With this new average, Biden says the nation is not only on track to surpass its commitment of 100 million shots in his first 100 days in office, but he expects to surpass that number. Critics have previously argued that 100 million doses was an inadequate target initially and hoped the pace of distribution would be increased when possible.

A d

Learn more about Biden’s visit and remarks here.