Checked elsewhere

Checks published by other fact-checking organisations. We did not do these checks. Each one names who did, shows their rating in their own words, and links to their full article.

Their rating
Checked by FactCheck.org16 Oct 2020United StatesHealth
Joe Biden, Democratic presidential nominee

“We had set up in our administration a pandemic office within the White House. There were 44 people on the ground [in China]. ... All those 44 people came home, never got replaced.”

FactCheck.org rated this: False

FactCheck.org says: Reuters, citing CDC documents, wrote that CDC’s Beijing office “has shrunk to around 14 staffers, down from approximately 47 people since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017.”

Joe Biden, former vice president

“If we shut it down a month earlier, we’d have probably another 45,000 to 60,000 people be alive instead of dead because he didn’t listen to — and I’m going to say something outrageous. He did not listen to guys like me back in January saying we have a problem, a pandemic is on the way.”

Washington Post rated this: Two Pinocchios

Washington Post says: Biden leaves the impression he had offered more specific plans to combat the virus. He did not say back in January that it was a pandemic, only that it was a possibility, and he did not advocate social distancing.

Checked by FactCheck.org27 May 2020United StatesHealth
Joe Biden, Democratic candidate for president

“Columbia University "pointed out that if [Trump] had listened to me and others and acted just one week earlier to deal with this virus, there’d be 36,000 fewer people dead.”

FactCheck.org rated this: Distorts the Facts

FactCheck.org says: Biden falsely suggested that he called for implementing nationwide social distancing restrictions prior to March 8, which Columbia University researchers said could have prevented nearly 36,000 U.S. death.

Donald Trump, President of the United States

“Campaign TV ad suggests CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta agreed 2 million people would have died from the novel coronavirus were it not for President Donald Trump's China travel restrictions.”

FactCheck.org rated this: False

FactCheck.org says: A Trump campaign ad misleadingly edits a CNN interview to suggest 2 million people would have died from the novel coronavirus were it not for President Donald Trump’s China travel restrictions.

Checked by FactCheck.org23 Apr 2020United StatesHealth
Social media posts

“Viral post shows same picture with different headlines on COVID-19 stories, asking, "That's weird the exact same people who visited the beach in Florida are now at the beaches in California?”

FactCheck.org rated this: Distorts the Facts

FactCheck.org says: Posts compare screenshots from two news sites to falsely claim that using the same image of people at the beach during the COVID-19 pandemic shows media deception. Both reports correctly identify the picture’s location.

Checked by FactCheck.org22 Apr 2020United StatesHealth
Donald Trump, President of the United States

“Italy was “hit hard” by the coronavirus pandemic because “a lot of the people that didn’t come in here went to Italy" when the U.S. imposed travel restrictions on China.”

FactCheck.org rated this: No Evidence

FactCheck.org says: We could find no evidence to support President Trump’s claim. In fact, Italy cut off air travel to and from China two days before the U.S. enacted its travel restrictions.