No, COVID-19 tests aren’t being used to collect human DNA
A Feb. 16 tweet from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about “genomic sequencing analysis” of COVID-19 tests was misconstrued by vaccine deniers and conspiracy theorists. Let’s take a look at the facts.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did not say that human DNA was being collected through COVID-19 tests.
In a tweet on Feb. 16, the CDC said that “there’s a 10% chance” that swabs used in COVID-19 PCR tests end up “in a lab for genomic sequencing analysis” — a process used to analyze the genetic makeup of viruses and track the emergence of variants.
In a subsequent tweet the CDC clarified that the sequencing and analysis work is on the genome of the virus that causes COVID-19, not on human DNA.
NewsLit takeaway
Conspiratorial rumors about the government and private companies using COVID-19 tests to build collections of human DNA have circulated since at least late 2020. These previous viral falsehoods — along with people’s tendency to interpret information in ways that maintain rather than challenge their existing ideas and beliefs — likely led some vaccine deniers and others to see “proof” of these baseless suspicions in the wording of the CDC’s Feb. 16 tweet.
Featured Fact-Checks
- “Fact Check: CDC Is NOT Collecting DNA Through COVID-19 Test Samples” (Alexis Tereszcuk, Lead Stories).