Biden's Numbers, The Inaugural Edition

Nearly 10 years ago, we started what turned out to be a standing feature of FactCheck.org.
 
On Oct. 8, 2012, we published “Obama’s Numbers” — our attempt to provide a statistical measure of then-President Barack Obama’s first term in office as he sought reelection. After Obama won, we continued with quarterly reports of "Obama's Numbers."

We did the same for President Donald Trump — and now we do so for President Joe Biden. This week we published our first "Biden's Numbers." 

As always, we include statistics that may seem good, bad or indifferent for the president, depending on a person’s partisan leanings.

In Biden’s case, the nation's economy and employment have been growing fast. The U.S. economy added 6.2 million jobs since January 2021, and economists estimate the economy grew by about 5% in 2021 -- the fastest in decades. 

But inflation and border apprehensions are also way up. The Consumer Price Index increased 6.8% during Biden's first 11 months in office, and the number of apprehensions at the border with Mexico increased by 317% in Biden’s first 10 full months compared with the same period in 2020.  

And, as always, we make no judgments on how much credit or blame the president deserves for any of it. We leave that to you and others. 

Reader: Will all people vaccinated die within 2 to 5 years?

FactCheck.org Director Eugene Kiely: There is no medical evidence that COVID-19 vaccinations will result in massive premature deaths.

I don't know where you heard this claim, but there was a video clip circulating online this past summer that showed Dolores Cahill — a professor in Ireland who until recently was the chair of the right-wing Irish Freedom Party — making a similar claim about widespread premature deaths. But she provided no evidence for it, because there isn't any.

Cahill specifically alleged that “anyone who’s over 70 who gets one of these mRNA vaccines will probably be — sadly die within about two to three years. And I would say anyone who gets the mRNA injection, no matter what age you are, your life expectancy will be reduced to you know die, if you’re in your 30s, within five to 10 years." 

This is what we wrote at that time in our article "Irish Professor Makes Unfounded Claims About Long-Term Effects of mRNA Vaccines:"

It’s unclear what exactly is behind Cahill’s wild and baseless claim that the vaccines will cause all recipients to die within a matter of years. Our inquiries to Cahill went unanswered. 

Meanwhile, Grant McFadden, director of the Biodesign Center for Immunotherapy, Vaccines, and Virotherapy at Arizona State University, told us in an email that “the safety record for the mRNA vaccines is excellent.” McFadden said that while “we do not yet have long-term data in humans,” there “are no scientific reasons to predict complications in these new vaccines in the coming years.” He added that “common health practices mandate that this will be monitored carefully for years to come.”

Wrapping Up

Here's what else we've got for you this week:

• "FactChecking Biden's Press Conference": In a nearly two-hour press conference, President Joe Biden stretched the facts and left out important context on vaccinations, funding for lead pipe removal, child poverty and more.
• "Q&A on At-Home Rapid Tests": The demand for at-home, rapid COVID-19 tests — sparked by the fast-spreading omicron variant in December — has continued in 2022. With that demand have come questions about the tests’ efficacy, how to use them and where to get them. We answer those queries and more.
• "Partisans Seize on Edited Clip of CDC Director’s Comments on COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness": Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, discussed a recent study that found that on the rare occasion when fully vaccinated people died from COVID-19, they often had multiple risk factors for severe disease. But her reference to vaccinated people was cut in a version of the interview — and conservative figures misleadingly claimed she was talking about all COVID-19 deaths.
• "Fake Article Falsely Links Dr. Sanjay Gupta to CBD Products": CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has reported extensively on the growing popularity of cannabis-based products. But a social media post, which links to a webpage masquerading as a CNN article, falsely claims Gupta is selling cannabidiol gummies. A CNN spokesperson said the content on the page is “completely false” and not from CNN.

• "Datos iniciales sobre ómicron": Mientras muchas personas en Estados Unidos y en todo el mundo se preparan para viajar y reunirse con seres queridos durante la época de vacaciones, la variante ómicron continúa causando preocupación. Si bien los datos disponibles sobre la transmisión, la eficacia de las vacunas y la gravedad de la enfermedad aún son preliminares, esto es lo que hemos aprendido hasta ahora.
• "Verificación de las aseveraciones de los jueces de la Corte Suprema sobre el COVID-19": El 7 de enero, la Corte Suprema de Estados Unidos escuchó argumentos para dos objeciones a los intentos de la administración Biden de expandir el uso de vacunas. Aquí presentamos los datos correctos sobre algunos de las aseveraciones realizadas por los jueces.
• "Aumento de informes al VAERS se debe a mayores requisitos de notificación y al intenso escrutinio de las vacunas contra el COVID-19": La ampliación de los requisitos de notificación y el intenso escrutinio de los cientos de millones de dosis administradas de vacunas contra el COVID-19 ha generado un récord en el número de notificaciones de posibles efectos secundarios a uno de los sistemas gubernamentales de control de la seguridad de las vacunas. Sin embargo, en las redes sociales se ha insinuado falsamente que el aumento de las notificaciones significa que las vacunas no son seguras.