Verification of facts about Biden virus claims made during Michigan visit to Pfizer factory

President Biden visited the Pfizer Michigan plant in Portage on Friday, where he commented to the nation on his government’s efforts to increase coronavirus vaccination in the United States.

During his first official visit to Michigan since being elected president, Biden visited the Pfizer facility and had a first-hand look at how COVID-19 vaccines are stored and shipped before discussing new distribution strategies.

While Biden’s comments on Friday were largely aspirational or congratulatory, there were a few things that needed to be checked.

Grant Herms, from site 4, analyzed some of Biden’s claims in our Confidence Index – see what we find below.

First, we will start with a statement made by Biden about the government’s effort to increase vaccine production in the US

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Biden’s statement: “When we discovered that vaccine manufacturers were not being prioritized when it came to examining and securing the supplies they needed, we fixed the problem and provided them with what they needed.”

We are calling this: be careful.

The Defense Production Act is generally used to get companies to change production for national interests. Although the Biden administration is using DPA in a more targeted way than the Trump administration, the Trump White House initially used it to encourage vaccine development at a time when the vaccine was far from ready for production and instead, they turned to other ways to encourage pharmaceutical companies to work on the vaccine.

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

Below, we are examining a claim made by Biden about the number of vaccinations administered every day in the U.S.

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Biden’s statement: “We are an average of 1.7 million a day. We will soon be at 50 million and I am confident that we will exceed that number. “

We are also calling this: be careful.

The information presented by Biden in this statement requires context.

Biden was referring to his commitment to administer 100 million American gun injections during his first 100 days in office. The country has surpassed the 50 million vaccine mark around Valentine’s Day and 50 million fully vaccinated Americans are expected by the end of March – but the vaccines are administered extra hour, and are not occurring in one day, as the president’s statement may seem to suggest.

Next, we are examining a statement made by President Biden about the number of Americans who went hungry in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden’s statement: “24 million adults and 11 million children do not have enough food to eat. And unless you think I’m overreacting, think about the scenes you saw on television with cars lined up, which looked like miles. “

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We are calling this: true.

However, it is important to note that specific numbers are difficult to track and the president may be underestimating the problem.

It appears that President Biden is using the USDA figures obtained during the pandemic, but before the full extent of the pandemic. According to the nonprofit Feeding America, Biden’s numbers were right at the start of the pandemic, but they are projected to get worse: close to 50 million hungry people, including 17 million children, in 2020.

Speaking about the vaccine launch, President Biden called the Michigan supermarket chain “Meijers”. We thought about this a lot and decided … let’s just stay out of it.

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During his first visit to Michigan since being elected president, Joe Biden visited the Pfizer plant in Kalamazoo County on Friday, thanking all employees during his live comments for his efforts to help vaccinate Americans against the coronavirus.

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After his visit to Pfizer’s largest plant, heading to the country, 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 believed that developing a vaccine could take six to eight years.

After criticizing the lack of a national vaccination strategy from the previous government, Biden outlined his government’s initiative to increase the production and distribution of the coronavirus vaccine, which he called “the most difficult operational challenge this nation has faced”.

President Biden says the average daily number of people vaccinated in the United States has almost doubled since the week before he took office, to an average of 1.7 million people receiving vaccines a day. With the new average, Biden says the nation is not only on track to exceed its 100 million gun fire commitment in its first 100 days in office, but hopes to exceed that number. Critics had previously argued that 100 million doses were an inadequate target to start with, and hoped that the pace of distribution would increase when possible.

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Read more about Biden’s visit and comments here.