This 2017-18 flu season study does not include COVID-19 (PF)

We have debunked plenty of misinformation about vaccines for COVID-19 that are in development. Next up: more false information tying COVID-19 to the seasonal flu vaccine.

An April 16 article shared on social media carries the headline “New study: The flu vaccine Is ‘significantly associated’ with an increased risk of coronavirus.”

Facebook flagged this story as part of its efforts to combat false news and misinformation on Facebook’s News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

The article never tied COVID-19 to the flu vaccine. The featured study of the article in question covers the 2017-2018 season, which is stated in the study’s title: Influenza vaccination and respiratory virus interference among Department of Defense personnel during the 2017–2018 influenza season (Wolff, 2020).

While this article did specify that the U.S. Armed Forces study was testing common coronaviruses and not COVID-19, the headline was ambiguous and misleading. We rate this headline False.

While the article title may seem misleading to PolitiFact, rating the headline “False” is clearly inaccurate and misleading since the headline is patently not false. The PolitiFact FC refers to the Collective Evolution article as “more false information tying COVID-19 to the seasonal flu vaccine,” yet the Collective Evolution article itself explains that viral interference between the flu vaccine and COVID-19 has not been studied.

The headline specifically used the word “Coronavirus” not “COVID-19” (Collective Evolution, 2020). Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses known to cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases, and common human coronaviruses have been identified and described for nearly 60 years (Reviewed in Mulabbi et al., 2021).