Do COVID-19 vaccines or PCR tests make people "magnetic"? No, that's not true. There is no evidence that either of them can increase what is perceived as "magnetism." But theatrical glue, oily skin or body cream can do the trick of making objects stick to skin without fundamentally altering the properties of the human body, which is not known for…

Do COVID-19 nasal test swabs contain both lithium and DARPA hydrogel that allow recipients to be remotely controlled? No, that's not true: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told Lead Stories that nasal swabs used to test for COVID do not contain lithium or hydrogel from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The claim appeared in a TikTok video…

Are disposable COVID-19 testing swabs that have been sterilized using ethylene oxide (EO) gas considered carcinogenic and dangerous when used daily? No, that's not true: Only minuscule amounts of EO remain after processing. Matthew J. Arduino, a senior adviser for the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told Lead Stories, "Cancer is…

Is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collecting DNA through COVID-19 test samples? No, that's not true: The CDC published a tweet on February 16, 2022, that stated that if a person took a COVID nose swab test there was "a 10% chance that it ended up in a lab for genomic sequencing analysis." The following day, February 17,…

Did Johns Hopkins University confirm you can be vaccinated with a COVID-19 PCR test, even without knowing it? No, that's not true: Johns Hopkins Medicine says details about one of its devices have been "inaccurately used for disinformation purposes," the device "has not been approved for use in humans" and has neither been "tested nor used for vaccine delivery." The…

Did an orange and a lemon test positive for COVID-19? Does using a test improperly, with fruit juice rather than a nasal swab, show that home tests are unreliable and will return false positives for anything? No, that's not true: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to many makers of home antigen diagnostic tests…

Is a lethal drug included in over-the-counter COVID-19 test kits? Yes, but that is misleading. In the Abbott Laboratories home kit, the drug sodium azide is in the liquid in a dropper bottle, with the liquid placed on the paper test card where the swab is inserted after being used to gather a specimen. The small amount of sodium azide…

Are COVID-19 tests that are labeled "positive control swab" and "negative control swab" manipulated to deliver predetermined results? No, that's not true: The SARS-CoV-2 test packaging shown in a photograph on social media are included in the kits for quality control and not used for patients, per the instructions in the kits. The claim appeared as an Instagram post on…

Did a woman find that there was evidence of SARS-CoV-2 in tap water because she tested the water with a COVID-19 home test kit? No, that's not true: The reading at the end of the video shows an invalid test result, not a positive COVID result. The test was performed incorrectly, outside of the manufacturer's labeling instructions and intended purpose.…

When a new variant is found to be spreading, does the old variant instantly disappear? Do people test positive for specific COVID-19 variants if they take a rapid antigen or a PCR test? No, neither of these assumptions are true: The initial testing for SARS-CoV-2 can only tell a person if they are infected or not. That test result does…