Did a Recent Tornado destroy a Pfizer Warehouse Filled with Covid-19 Vaccines?

Tornados can account for enormous property damage in a short span of time, and every year we hear such stories, especially from the USA. Recently a massive EF3 tornado touched down in North Carolina with winds up to 150 mph, creating huge damages and also destroying a Pfizer facility in Rocky Mount.

Soon after, social media was flooded with many posts about the incident; Anti-vaxxers celebrated the destruction, stating its God’s intervention to destroy Covid19 vaccines.

Social Media Posts

Along with the scenes of a devastated building, one of the Facebook users against the vaccination drive stated, "Finally some GOOD NEWS! Pfizer Warehouse in North Carolina full of Covid-19 Vaccine (50,000 pallets) destroyed by a tornado! Thousands of lives will be saved! GOD WINS - SATAN LOST”

Facebook | Archived

We decided to do an investigation into this.

Fact Check

Major news streams reported this incident, and Pfizer and its administrative offices in North Carolina had also commented regarding the devastation.

WSPA website (local television channel) reported Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone's statement, and he revealed Pfizer plant stored large quantities of medicine and debris was spread all around. “I’ve got reports of 50,000 pallets of medicine strewn across the facility and damaged through the rain and the wind,” the county Sheriff told the WSPA news channel.

Erin Fox, senior pharmacy director at the University of Utah Health, said to the WSPA that damage would likely lead to long-term shortages of some medicinal types of equipment, etc. More details about it can be read here.

Daily Mail reported that Pfizer had said the 250-acre site, with 1.4 million square feet of manufacturing space, is one of the largest sterile injectable facilities in the world. Related Daily Mail articles can be read here.

The plant produces anesthetics and other drugs and nearly 25 per cent of all sterile injectable medications used in U.S. hospitals, Pfizer said on its website.

Elaborating on the warehouse damage, Pfizer stated, “Most of the damage was caused to the warehouse facility, which stores raw materials, packaging supplies, and finished medicines awaiting release by quality assurance.”

Also replying to AP news, Pfizer spokesman Pam Eisele confirmed that the plant in question is not used to manufacture or store any doses of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine, Comirnaty. She adds that the damaged site was never used to make or store Paxlovid, Pfizer’s pill used to treat those who get sick with COVID-19 either. More on this here

“Since 1968, the Rocky Mount facility has been a key producer of sterile injectables. Currently, it is responsible for manufacturing nearly 25 per cent of all Pfizer’s sterile injectables – including anesthesia, analgesia, therapeutics, anti-infectives and neuromuscular blockers – which is nearly 8 per cent of all the sterile injectables used in U.S. hospitals. The site is one of 10 Pfizer manufacturing sites in the United States.”, they say further. The Pfizer announcement over the issue can be read here.

Facebook | Twitter |Instagram | Google News | TikTok

Conclusion

The warehouse housed and manufactured sterile injectable medications, namely IV, anesthetics, analgesics, and neuromuscular blockers etc. Furthermore, Pfizer officials confirm that the destroyed plant was never used to manufacture or store Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, Comirnaty.