Fact Check: Photograph of Joe Biden in airplane without a mask is from 2019

Hyderabad: A photo of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and National Press Secretary, Remi Yamamoto, in an airplane without masks has gone viral. His opponents have targeted him on social media with the claim that Biden is hypocritical for not wearing a mask during the Coronavirus pandemic while advocating their importance.

This photo was also tweeted by former Acting Director of the United States National Intelligence and Republican member Richard Grenell with the text that read, "Washington, DC phony! @JoeBiden doesn't wear a mask on a plane - but wears one OUTSIDE!? (sic)."

(archived tweet)

Click here and here to view similar claims.

FACT CHECK:

This photograph of Biden was shot in 2019, during the pre-COVID times and not in 2020.

NewsMeter performed a reverse image search and found an article by Vogue that carried the same image. It was captioned, "Yamamoto and Biden huddle on a flight to South Carolina in November 2019."

Other websites like Flipboard and NewsBreak also carried the same picture and article from Vogue and stated that the image was from November 2019, before the Coronavirus outbreak.

Hence, the claim that this is a recent photo of Biden is false.