Fact check: Public-health officials are NOT representing cases of the common cold as coronavirus infections

"In February 2020, as the earliest Covid-19 cases cropped up in the U.S., the late conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh told his listeners there was no need to worry. 'The coronavirus is the common cold, folks,' he said, pushing a false claim that would soon be repeated widely online," Bill McCarthy reports for The Poynter Institute's PolitiFact. "Nearly two years later, and after millions of people have died worldwide from the coronavirus and its variants, social media users are still taking up the refrain."

But that's not so, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and five other authorities, the coronavirus and its variants are genetically distinct from influenza and other viruses. One noted that the common cold isn't a specific virus, but an infection that several viruses can cause, McCarthy reports. Some colds are caused by rhinoviruses, and some are caused by one of four mild coronaviruses. Those variants are genetically different from strains that cause Covid-19, SARS, and MERS.

Moreover, experts noted, Covid-19 cases are only counted if the patient has a positive test, not just for reported symptoms that can mimic the common cold or influenza. Likewise, influenza cases only count as such after a positive flu test, McCarthy reports. In addition to a comprehensive dashboard on Covid-19, the CDC publishes a weekly report comparing infections, hospitalizations and deaths from Covid-19 with influenza and pneumonia. It also publishes figures on covid-like and flu-like illnesses: in other words, patients with symptoms but who have not had a positive test to confirm their diagnosis. This data is collected from state and local public-health agencies and health-care providers.