Posts circulating on Facebook and Instagram claim the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will stop using its covid-19 test because it cannot differentiate between the covid virus and flu viruses.
Mike Huckabee, a former Fox News host who was also a Republican presidential candidate and governor of Arkansas, similarly claimed on Facebook that the CDC test cannot tell the difference between coronaviruses and flu viruses.
A July 24 Instagram post went further: “The FDA announced today that the CDC PCR test has failed its full review. Emergency Use Authorization has been REVOKED.”
In the lab alert, the CDC said it was withdrawing the EUA request because, rather than testing only for the covid virus, it wants labs to test people for multiple viruses simultaneously, using what is known as "a multiplexed method." The CDC's 2019-nCoV RT-PCR panel tests only for the covid virus.
"It is not remotely accurate that the CDC test doesn't differentiate between flu and SARS-CoV-2. It doesn't detect influenza. It only detects SARS-CoV-2," said Wroblewski. "If flu and covid are both circulating, you would be able to detect only SARS-CoV-2 and not flu."
The statements made in these Facebook posts are not accurate. We rate this claim False.
Research Jopo. Use it and love it. Once again, you've been sucked in by a story circulating on Facebook and you didn't even bother to spend five minutes checking to see whether it was true or not. And in this case you have got it so very wrong.
