No, the CDC hasn’t issued a ‘health advisory’ about the XBB COVID-19 subvariant

Editor’s note: Posts that falsely claim the CDC has issued a health advisory about the XBB subvariant of COVID-19 are circulating again on Facebook in August 2024. The same false message has been shared online since as early as fall 2022. The story continues as published below:

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show a recent uptick in positive COVID-19 tests, though there haven’t been major spikes in hospitalizations or deaths.

A post circulating on Facebook in recent weeks claims to show a CDC health advisory about the XBB subvariant of COVID-19.

“Everyone is advised to wear a mask because the new COVID-Omicron XBB variant of coronavirus is different, deadly and not easily detected properly,” the Facebook post reads in part.

The post also claims that XBB is “5 times more toxic” than the delta variant of COVID-19.

Several VERIFY readers asked us if the Facebook posts are legitimate. 

THE QUESTION

Has the CDC issued a health advisory about the XBB COVID-19 subvariant?

THE SOURCES

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website
• Official CDC social media accounts
• The World Health Organization (WHO)
• The American Medical Association 
• Yale Medicine
• Search of posts on Facebook and X, formerly Twitter

THE ANSWER

No, the CDC has not issued a health advisory about the XBB COVID-19 subvariant. 

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WHAT WE FOUND

There is no evidence of the CDC issuing a health advisory about the XBB subvariant on its website or social media accounts. 

The CDC has not posted an advisory on the webpage for its Health Alert Network (HAN), which shares information about urgent public health incidents with federal, state and local officials. 

The federal health agency’s most recent press release about COVID-19 was shared on June 27 and provides information about updated 2024-2025 vaccine recommendations. The agency’s latest data from early August 2024 shows the prominent strains of COVID currently circulating in the U.S. are the “FLiRT and LB.1” variants of omicron – not XBB. 

VERIFY also searched the official CDC accounts on Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter, and did not find any posts about a health advisory for XBB. 

We did find posts on Facebook and X with a nearly identical message about the XBB subvariant from October and November 2022. This means the posts are likely copypasta, which is internet slang for a block of text that gets copied and pasted repeatedly. 

Copypasta often leads to harmful or false information spreading online, like these 2022 memes claiming people could get up to $3,000 for hurricane cleanup. 

 Many of the posts’ claims about the XBB subvariant are either false or unproven. 

The omicron variant and its subvariants, including the XBB subvariant that primarily circulated in 2023, were associated with less severe infections than those caused by earlier strains of COVID-19 such as the delta variant.

In October 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) said data did not suggest any “substantial differences in disease severity” for XBB infections. 

This has also been the case for other strains descended from the XBB subvariant, such as EG.5. The WHO said in its initial risk evaluation of EG.5 that there have been “no reported changes in disease severity to date.”

Health experts did not report any significant changes in symptoms caused by the XBB subvariant or strains descended from it, either. 

The American Medical Association says the XBB.1.5 strain caused cold symptoms such as cough and congestion. Other symptoms can include fever, chills, fatigue, aches, sore throat, nausea and diarrhea. 

EG.5 also “tends to infect the upper respiratory tract,” leading to cold-like symptoms, according to Yale Medicine.

Though mask orders are no longer in effect at the federal level, the CDC still says wearing a mask and handwashing are among the effective ways to prevent the spread of COVID-19. 

The CDC did not respond to multiple requests for comment by the time of publication.