Fact Check: Adenoviruses Are NOT A New Threat Like COVID-19

Mild Symptoms

Will Adenovirus be contagious like COVID-19 and result in a pandemic? No, that's not true: It has been around us for ages and the symptoms are mild as a common cold.

The claim appeared in a video (archived here) where it was published on Tiktok by @rpm0313 on 16 Apr 2023 under the title "'아데노바이러스'(HAdV) 아데노바이러스에 감염되면 눈꼽이 심하게 껴서 눈꼽 감기 라고 부르기도 한다네요.. 증상이 코로나보다 더 심다하고 하니 다들 조심하세요 🤒": "'Adenovirus'(HAdV) Also known as sleep crust cold since when you get infected, you got lots of sleep crust in your eyes.. Be careful cause the symptom is severe than COVID." It opened:

Adenoviruses have more severe symptoms than COVID.

This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:

(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Apr 18 17:52:19 2023 UTC)

Adenovirus is NOT a novel disease threatening us. In most cases, it comes with common cold or flu-like symptoms, fever or sore throat, according to CDC. The CDC also notes that 'Adenoviruses are common' on their website.

The video starts with a screenshot from a TV news package. The package was about the first case of 'acute hepatitis of unknown origin in children' reported in South Korea. The case is actually reported and Adenoviruses were pointed as the main cause. However, it was a year out of date when posted to TikTok. the package was aired May 10, 2022. Moreover, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) ended monitoring similar cases, in Dec 2022.

Plus, the graph shown in the video says the ratio of confirmed Adenovirus cases among common cold has increased from last year. However, it is easy to tell it is an outdated one; the data is from 'KCDC' (in Korean, '질병관리본부'), a former body of KDCA (질병관리청). Since KCDC was renamed KDCA in 2020, the graph is from 2019 or even earlier.