 |
| Image: NBC News |
President Joe Biden gave his first prime-time presidential address shortly after signing the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill.
POLITIFACT subsequently provided a couple misleading fact-checks in its regard.
Vaccinations
Joe Biden made the claim that:
"Two months ago, this country did not have nearly enough vaccine supply to vaccinate all or nearly all of the American public. But soon we will."
POLITIFACT claims this is misleading rated a the claim Mostly False.
They state that
While Trump was in office, his administration had agreements in place to buy 400 million doses of authorized vaccine, or enough to inoculate about 200 million people. That’s less than the U.S. adult population. But the Trump team had laid the groundwork to buy more.
While that is true and Joe Biden the nature of how the statement was delivered by Biden did seem to be a bit misleading, the simple fact is that it was an accurate statement and Biden's intent is not known. It can be realistically assumed perhaps, but assumptions and facts are not equivalent.
The truth is that at the time, there was indeed, not enough supply to vaccinate the American public.
Educators
POLITFACT called Biden's statement regarding losing 1 million educators an inflated number. This was premised on the fact that the numbers included school employees overall and hold the opinion that some positions, like a janitor for example, are not technically a janitor.
While true, the report also does not include non-school educators, such as piano teachers or corporate certifications all of which are also considered educators so it's equally as possible that this number is low.
The other 5 claims made by POLITIFACT appeared reasonably accurate.
Summary
POLITIFACT's fact-check of the Joe Biden address is mostly accurate, 5 out of 7 claims appear to be correct. Two however, were not deserving of being considered Mostly False since one was the truth and the other was undeterminable.
