Fact-Checking a Claim About the Pfizer CEO’s Vaccination Status

Newsmax White House correspondent Emerald Robinson went viral on Twitter with a claim that the CEO of Pfizer, Albert Bourla, has not been vaccinated against coronavirus. 

Robinson linked to an article from the Jerusalem Post reporting that Bourla had to cancel a visit to Israel because he had not been fully vaccinated. The article was published on March 7, 2021, and notes that Bourla had received his first dose but not the second at the time. Bourla said in December 2020 that he would not “cut in line” to receive the vaccine early simply because of his status as the head of Pfizer, and instead would wait until he was eligible based on his age group. Axios reported on March 7 that Bourla said in an interview that he felt “liberated” after recently getting the first dose of his company’s vaccine. On March 10, Bourla tweeted a picture of himself receiving his second dose of the vaccine. 

When asked about Robinson’s tweet, Steven Danehy, director of media relations at Pfizer, told The Dispatch Fact Check: “That is categorically false. Dr. Bourla has been fully vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.”