According to this post on Facebook, pandemics like COVID-19 strike with eerie precision, every 100 years:

“1720 — Plague; 1820 — Cholera outbreak; 1920 — Spanish flu; 2020 — Chinese coronavirus. What’s happening? There is a theory that every 100 years, a pandemic happens. At first glance, nothing seems strange, but the accuracy with which these events take place is scary.”

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

The plague cited wasn’t a pandemic; two of the other examples didn’t occur neatly in the years cited; and, most importantly, numerous other pandemics have occurred without such synchronicity.

“I am suspicious of the idea that pandemics operate to a railroad timetable,” Yale University history professor Frank Snowden, author of “Epidemics and Society,” told PolitiFact, noting several problems with the post.

Many more than 4 pandemics

The World Health Organization defines pandemic as: “The worldwide spread of a new disease.”