A viral video shared on X claims to show President Joe Biden instructing residents in the path of Hurricane Helene to prepare for the natural disaster by getting vaccinated.

🚨 Biden says to prepare for Hurricane Helene by getting vaccinated pic.twitter.com/zmEXrF2Wyp

— The Patriot Oasis™ (@ThePatriotOasis) September 26, 2024

Verdict: False

Biden instructed Americans to get vaccinated to prepare for hurricane season in 2021. A White House official denied the claim that Biden’s comments were recent in an email to Check Your Fact.

Fact Check:

Biden is set to visit North and South Carolina, while 2024 Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Georgia to view the damage sustained following Hurricane Helene, according to NBC News. At least 166 people died as a result of the natural disaster, the Guardian reported.

The X video, viewed over 20,000 times as of writing, claims to show Biden instructing residents in the path of Hurricane Helene to prepare for the natural disaster by getting vaccinated.

“Let me be clear: if you’re in a state where hurricanes often strike, like Florida, or the Gulf Coast, or into Texas, a vital part of preparing for hurricane season is to get vaccinated now. Everything is more complicated if you’re not vaccinated and a hurricane or natural disaster hits,” Biden says in the video.

While Biden discusses getting vaccinated as part of hurricane preparedness, he does not mention anything about Hurricane Helene specifically. The claim tying Biden’s comments to Hurricane Helene is made by the video’s caption. “Biden says to prepare for Hurricane Helene by getting vaccinated,” the video’s caption reads. (RELATED: X Video Of Hurricane Helene Includes Footage Of Floods In Czech Republic)

The claim is false. Biden’s comments are not recent but instead originally stem from a 2021 briefing he received from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and his Homeland Security and COVID-19 Response Teams. The briefing focused on how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted hurricane preparedness, and Biden’s comments about getting vaccinated begin at the video’s 1:38-minute mark.

A transcript of Biden’s remarks available via the White House’s website also indicates his comments are from 2021 as he discusses the Delta variant of COVID-19, which led to a surge of the virus at the time.

Likewise, neither the White House nor Biden appears to have referenced his previous comment about getting vaccinated in relation to Hurricane Helene.

In addition, Check Your Fact found no credible news reports suggesting Biden’s remark is recent. Actually, the opposite is true. On Sept. 27, VERIFY debunked the claim, indicating Biden made the remark in 2021.

Furthermore, a White House official denied the claim that Biden’s comments were recent in an email to Check Your Fact.

“This claim is unequivocally false,” the same White House official said.