Covid-19 Test Swab

Is the Canadian government putting passengers arriving on international flights into 'forced detention' in a 'COVID camp'? No, that's not true: Canada has recently required passengers arriving on international flights, who had traveled for non-essential reasons, to "reserve a room in a hotel for three nights at their own cost," while they await their COVID-19 test results. This quarantine measure…

Is the Q-tip nasal swab for COVID-19 that is stuck "up someone's brain" equivalent to "a drop of spit" that can infect someone from six feet away? No, that's not true. A single virus can hatch an infection, while a much bigger sample is needed for accurate testing. A drop of spit can infect a person because a virus riding…

Does not getting tested for Covid 19 make the disease disappear? Are the elderly the only people dying? Are Democratic governors intentionally infecting them? No, no and no. Those are not true: You will have the disease regardless of whether you get tested. You just won't have an official diagnosis that you have it. All age groups are dying from…

Has the widely-used PCR test for COVID-19 returned false positive results, exaggerating the number of Americans infected? No, that's not true: The test accurately determines whether patients' nasal swabs show infection. But anti-quarantine-and-mask activists, who did none of their own reporting, have misused the results of a reporter's recent analysis of testing: it shows many who are infected may not…

Is it true that the World Health Organization's test for COVID-19 contains a flaw that "should" deliver a false positive on every test, skewing data about the pandemic? No, that's not true. The claim, made by a conservation blogger with no apparent virology expertise, misunderstands the science of gene-based testing, according to WHO officials. Plus, the blogger's hypothesis fails to…

Were people tested for COVID-19 exposed to the coronavirus due to contaminated tests? No, that's not true: Federal officials did send out defective tests in February -- one month into the pandemic in the United States and about six months before posts making the "tainted lab kits" claim went viral on social media. But the defective tests were recalled, did…

Do PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests for coronavirus pierce the blood-brain barrier? No, that's not true: There's no way for a nasal swab to reach the barrier without going through bone, according to a leading public health expert who has studied the Covid-19 virus. The claim appeared as a Facebook post (archived here) on July, 6, 2020. It opened: This…

Did a nurse prove that COVID-19 tests were being faked at a San Francisco hospital? No, that's not true: The source of the claim is admittedly at least four times removed from the purported false testing and no credible evidence is offered in the viral post. The anonymous meme suggests that hospitals have a financial incentive to get positive tests…

Did Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the Coronavirus Reponse team in the Trump administration, "let it slip" that the lack of COVID-19 testing was because it wasn't profitable enough for private labs? No, that is not true. Birx said during a White House news conference that her office had been working with labs to increase coronavirus testing capability, and…

Is it true that you cannot catch the novel coronavirus, as a viral video suggests? No, that's not true: Viruses are contagious. The video is filled with inaccuracies and medically false information. Lead Stories reached out to a medical doctor in Atlanta who called the video "total garbage." The claims appeared in a post (archived here) published on Facebook by…