Flu cases dropped during the pandemic because of lockdowns and masking, the CDC said.
Monkeypox and shingles each result in blistering skin rashes, but they look different on the body.
Testing for each disease is different, with monkeypox confirmation being done at the CDC.
Influenza cases went down dramatically after COVID-19 first began its rampage across the U.S. in 2020. Now some social media users are predicting a similar scenario happening again, this time with shingles and monkeypox.
"You know how with COVID the flu suddenly disappeared, when in reality COVID tests were picking up the flu and saying that it was COVID? They’re going to do the same thing with monkeypox and shingles," one woman said in a Facebook video on May 21.
The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its news feed. (Read more about PolitiFact’s partnership with Facebook.)
The narrator in the Facebook video is wrong on several counts.
First, as PolitiFact has reported before, COVID-19 tests did not pick up flu cases and count them as coronavirus cases.
In short, the initial COVID-19 testing protocol from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was specifically designed to only find SARS-CoV-2, not influenza or any other virus. In July 2021, the CDC alerted labs that it was withdrawing its emergency use authorization request for the protocol because newer diagnostic tests, or PCR tests, had been developed that...
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