A false claim on social media cites instructional leaflets in COVID-19 tests as evidence that they aren't accurate.
The posts claim a list of 52 viruses "can cause a PCR test to give false positives."
A Jan. 21 Facebook post says, “Funny how no one says anything about this."
Several other Facebook posts shared in late January made similar claims. The narrative also spread on Twitter.
But the claim is wrong.
USA TODAY found no evidence that manufacturers have listed viruses that can cause false positives in COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction tests, commonly known as PCR tests. As other independent fact-checking outlets have reported, the list cited in the Facebook post includes pathogens that manufacturers have used to ensure their tests only detect the coronavirus.
In other words, instead of being a list of viruses that spur a false positive, it is a list of viruses that could not.
USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook users for comment. The one that replied did not offer any evidence that the list reflected viruses that yield false positives.
Several of the 52 viruses referenced in the Facebook post are listed in instructional booklets for authorized COVID-19 tests, of which there are many. But that's not evidence that the tests don't work.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the John Hopkins Center for Health Security, told USA TODAY these...
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