Pfizer Facility Damaged in Tornado Didn’t Produce COVID-19 Vaccines

Pfizer says it uses two facilities to manufacture the COVID-19 vaccine that it developed with BioNTech.

One is in Puurs, Belgium, and the other is in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

“[B]oth plants had the space, the know-how, the people, and the equipment to get to work right away,” the company explained on its website. “Their locations in the U.S. and Europe positioned them well for global distribution.”

But misinformation purveyors began spreading a rumor online that the company’s COVID-19 vaccines were impacted by a tornado that damaged a North Carolina warehouse on July 19.

For example, Graham Allen, a conservative commentator we’ve written about before, posted a video of the destruction on Instagram with text that said, “Gods work? A Pfizer Warehouse Full of Covid Vaccines Was Just DESTROYED BY A TORNADO in North Carolina.” After another fact checker wrote about his post, Allen edited the caption to acknowledge that “COVID-19 Vaccines Are NOT ‘Stocked’ At NC Pfizer Facility Damaged By A Tornado,” but the text on his video remained the same.

But there’s no evidence to support the claim that COVID-19 vaccines were present at that warehouse.