STAFF REPORTS

Two days ago, Yahoo!News put out a scoop. It seemed the CDC had back-pedaled in their guidelines about how SARS-CoV-2 spreads. The story was technically accurate, but rather than uncovering a shift in policy, the change appears to be a simple reshuffling of the same sentence regarding surfaces (this is the current link) and placing “contaminated surfaces and objects” solidly under a subject header “The virus does not spread easily in other ways.”

Back to Facts examined the Internet Wayback Machine and found the page version when it was first generated on sometime in late February or early March. The wording about contaminated surfaces and objects is identical, but it was placed under the main headline “How Covid-19 spreads” and certainly looked like a more ominous, highlighted factoid.

FOX News and Lifezette predictably put the CDC in as bad a light as possible, stating now you might not have to wipe down your groceries, which actually might not be a bad idea considering that many people found this a tough task to do every day. Most of the articles, including the Washington Post, quoted experts as stating it was concerning that CDC made this change, and others stating that as long as you wash your hands after touching something, you should be safe from contracting the virus.