FactChecking Biden's SOTU Address

State of the Union addresses are highly scripted affairs involving teams of White House speechwriters and in-house fact-checkers. 

And, for the most part, presidents stick to the script.

This presents a challenge for us. We are far more likely to come across outlandish claims in the heat of a campaign at rallies and in TV ads than at a constitutionally mandated message to Congress. 

Still, the State of the Union is such a high-profile event that we devote a lot of resources to it, so we can post an article a few hours after the speech ends. This year, our article covered nine claims that the president made. Mostly we provided context for his statements on such topics as strategic oil reserves, gasoline prices, jobs and tax cuts. 

For example, Biden praised the international response to rising oil prices as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He said dozens of countries agreed to the release of 60 million barrels of global oil reserves, including 30 million from the U.S.  He promised that this “will help blunt gas prices here at home.” But energy experts were underwhelmed. 

Market strategist Yeap Jun Rong of IG in Singapore told S&P Global that 60 million barrels is "less than one day of worldwide oil consumption.”  Meanwhile, oil prices continued to climb.

Read the full story, "FactChecking Biden’s State of the Union Address."

Reader: A friend told me today that a majority of those currently hospitalized for Covid have been vaccinated. Is this a fact?

FactCheck.org Director Eugene Kiely: Raw numbers of hospitalizations and deaths among those who are vaccinated are not a good indicator of whether vaccines are effective.

We wrote about that in a story called "Why It's Easy to Misinterpret Numbers of Deaths Among the Vaccinated." 

For that reason, the CDC and most states generally provide the hospitalization RATES per 100,000 population, rather than raw numbers of hospitalizations. 

For example, for the week ending Jan. 29, 2022, the CDC reports that there were 88.9 hospitalizations per 100,000 unvaccinated people (ages 18 and older) compared with 13.2 hospitalizations per 100,000 fully vaccinated people. That means that COVID-19 associated hospitalizations were roughly seven times higher among unvaccinated adults 18 years and older compared with those who are fully vaccinated.

Some states provide raw data. For example, in Washington state there were 37,855 people (ages 12 and up) who were hospitalized with COVID-19 from Feb. 1 to Feb. 8. Of those hospitalized, 27,474 were unvaccinated, or 72.6%; 8,525 were fully vaccinated, or 22.5%. (See the Washington data on page 11.) 

In Kentucky, there were 15,657 COVID-19 hospitalizations from March 1, 2021, to Feb. 16, 2022. Of those, 13,218, or 84.4%, were among those who were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated. Only 15.6% were among those who are fully vaccinated. (Kentucky includes a footnote that says "Hospitalization data may be underreported.")

Bottom line: You have a better chance of staying out of a hospital if you get a COVID-19 vaccine.  
 

Wrapping Up

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

• "Benefits of COVID-19 Vaccination Outweigh the Rare Risk of Myocarditis, Even in Young Males": Rare cases of myocarditis have been reported following the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, particularly among young males after a second dose. Most cases resolve quickly without the need for advanced therapies, although research on any potential long-term effects is ongoing. Nonetheless, the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks in all populations, even in young males.
• "FactChecking Trump’s CPAC Speech": Former President Donald Trump’s keynote speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference included several false and misleading claims, some of which we’ve fact-checked before. Here we focus on assertions about foreign policy and energy.
• "Bogus Tweet Spreads False Account of ‘First American Casualty’ in Ukraine": “Bernie Gores” was not killed in Afghanistan in August, and he wasn’t the “first American casualty of the Ukraine crisis.” He doesn’t exist. But Facebook users were faked out by fabricated tweets that purport to show CNN announcing the death of the same man twice in six months. The photo of “Gores” used in both fake tweets is video gamer Jordie Jordan. 
• "Social Media Posts Misrepresent U.S.-Ukraine Threat Reduction Program": The U.S. Department of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction Program has provided technical support to improve and protect Ukraine’s public health laboratories. Social media posts, however, falsely claim the program created “bioweapons labs” that are being targeted by Russian forces as part of the invasion of Ukraine. 
• "COVID-19 Vaccines Have Prevented Deaths, Contrary to Misleading Graphic on Social Media": Studies have shown that COVID-19 vaccines have prevented severe disease and deaths. But bogus claims that they don’t work continue to circulate online. One recent claim relies on a misleading graph showing cumulative deaths in the U.S., but omits information about the number of deaths among the vaccinated versus unvaccinated since the shots became available.
• "More than 100 Protesters Arrested in Ottawa, Despite Claims in Facebook Video": More than 100 people were arrested during the Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa. But a video on social media falsely claimed protesters were released “in the middle of nowhere” because the arrests were “illegal.” An associate professor of law who observed the protests said that “police had the authority to arrest and charge everyone in the illegal gathering.”

• "Las vacunas contra el COVID-19 en Estados Unidos siguen normas y protocolos de salud convencionales": Estudios clínicos y del mundo real han demostrado que las vacunas contra el COVID-19 son eficaces para prevenir enfermedades graves, y los requisitos de vacunación en Estados Unidos cuentan con una larga trayectoria. Sin embargo, una lista de afirmaciones falsas compartida en todo el mundo en los últimos meses, atribuye erróneamente características y requisitos especiales a las vacunas contra el COVID-19.