White House says it ‘misstated’ that vaccines were unavailable when President Biden took office

The White House is walking back a tweet stating that claimed “there was no vaccine available” when President Biden took office, issuing a follow-up tweet on Friday night saying that it “misstated” the availability of COVID-19 vaccines in January 2021.

On Thursday, the official White House Twitter account tweeted “When President Biden took office, millions were unemployed and there was no vaccine available.”

TWITTER ALLOWS WHITE HOUSE TO MAKE ‘CLEARLY FALSE’ CLAIM THAT COVID VACCINE WASN’T AVAILABLE UNTIL BIDEN ERA

The original tweet drew fierce criticism from other Twitter users, who pointed out that there was a COVID-19 vaccine available when Biden took office on Jan. 20, 2021.

President Biden even shared a picture of himself receiving his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on Dec. 21, 2020. 

On Friday night, the White House tweeted that its original tweet “misstated that vaccines were unavailable in January 2021.”

“We previously misstated that vaccines were unavailable in January 2021. We should have said that they were not widely available. Vaccines became available shortly before the President came into office. Since then, he’s responsible for fully vaccinating over 200 million people,” the tweet from Friday night states.

WHITE HOUSE BURIED OVER TWEET CLAIMING THERE WAS ‘NO VACCINE’ WHEN BIDEN TOOK OFFICE: ‘DELETE THIS’

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

While the White House corrected its tweet, the original version which states that there was “no vaccine available” when President Biden took office remains on the social media platform and has not been deleted.

Some Twitter users received a disclaimer stating that other readers have “added context” to the White House tweet, but that was only part of a “pilot program” being tested with a “small group of people. 

Fox News’ Brian Flood contributed to this report.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-misstated-vaccines-unavailable-twitter