Air travel reduction, staying at home and distancing as playing big roles.
Perhaps we should continue this way.
Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
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Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
#72While I am sure that masks and no working from the office played a part in this, I believe: 1) most flu cases are being mislabeled as covid 2) most people who have a mild flu are not going to the doctor 3) the easiest way to test this will be when covid goes away and the flu suddenly reappears.
When Covid goes away, we can assume masking, distancing, and staying home will also go away. In that case, all communicable diseases are likely to increase, from the common cold to STDs.
And thus the flu hasn't disappeared.
Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely agree that standard flu cases are surely being reported as covid.
Usually only positive PCR test leads to a covid diagnosis and reporting.
Depends, different countries (and sometimes states) have different standards there. And those reporting standards also sometimes changed over time. Which is why numbers are not completely comparable internationally and from different periods of the pandemic without a lot of additional interpretation.
Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
#74Just speculating here, but maybe because of false positives where flu cases get labeled as Covid? I've heard that PCR tests were not meant to be used for large scale virus detection. EDIT: The PCR test quote was fact checked and deemed to be misleading, but it still sounds like they are not very accurate [0]. [0]: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-pcr-idUSKBN2442...
It may even be the case that fewer people are seeking medical care for symptoms that they (correctly) think are just the flu. The lack of smell that COVID often causes is very distinct; easy to imagine people who are sick with the flu, but have not lost their sense of smell deciding to stay home both out of fear of covid, and because accessing medical care during a pandemic is less convenient. Some people may also be…
For all of the weird things my country Sweden has done (and perhaps more importantly - not done) in the past year, shaming and financially punishing people with covid is not one of them.
The flu didn't happen here either according to the long standing sentinel testing program.
https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/folkhalsorapportering-st... (Swedish, published today)
Summary: 145k people were tested (1.4% of the total population), 29 people tested positive for an influenza variant during the winter season 2020/2021. Typical numbers for previous years are in the thousands.
Graph comparing winter seasons: https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/contentassets/a9433fcecd...
(X-axis: week number, Y-axis: number of cases.)
Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
#75While I am sure that masks and no working from the office played a part in this, I believe: 1) most flu cases are being mislabeled as covid 2) most people who have a mild flu are not going to the doctor 3) the easiest way to test this will be when covid goes away and the flu suddenly reappears.
In most developed countries, some sort of flu surveillance is operated. In some countries, those surveillance operations are seeing _no positive cases at all_. They are, however, seeing some flu-like symptoms and picking up some rhinovirus (and covid).
Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
#76While I am sure that masks and no working from the office played a part in this, I believe: 1) most flu cases are being mislabeled as covid 2) most people who have a mild flu are not going to the doctor 3) the easiest way to test this will be when covid goes away and the flu suddenly reappears.
You know they do covid tests if they think your flu is covid. I think you are mixing up half-facts. People were saying that deaths with co-factors were being lumped as covid related deaths and different countries were classifying things differently for political reasons. No one is mislabeling the flu as covid and not giving you a covid test to detect the strain.
"No one is mislabeing the flu as covid".
There have been 33 million positive coronavirus cases and 444 million tests-- are you sure you want to assert the following is true 100% of the time:
1) all covid diagnoses are ONLY covid
2) all flu occurrences are diagnosed, and when they are diagnosed, they are always ONLY diagnosed as flu
Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
The likely explanation is that, because the flu is significantly less transmissible than COVID, even states with "no restrictions" were able to knock it out because enough people took enough measures to protect themselves from airborne/surface communicable disease in general. In other words, you can probably beat back the flu significantly by having enough of the population mask up, wash/sanitize their hands, etc.
> The likely explanation is that, because the flu is significantly less transmissible than COVID But why is it less transmissible? One obvious explanation is because we've lived with it all our lives, and most people already have some level of pre-existing immunity to most flu strains they're exposed to. Both due to natural infections, and vaccines. > In other words, you can probably beat back the flu significantly b…
Transmissibility (or Basic Reproduction Number - R0) is an intrinsic characteristic of a disease.
Measles is at least 3 times more transmissible than flu [1].
We have a very effective vaccine against measles and a mildly effective one against flu, so people get flu and not measles but let them circulate among people without any protection and measles will get them sooner than flu. And it's also much deadlier [2]
[1] https://transportgeography.org/contents/applications/transpo...
[2] https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/189/Supplement_1/S4/823...
Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
#78If I caught the flu, how would the government/scientists studying this stuff even know I got it? If you're anything like me you probably just take some time off and get over the illness without ever seeing a doctor or taking a flu-test. How do they measure such things? I suspect they use some elaborate statistical model to try and generalize the results to the whole population.
Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
#79Will flu season be back at some point ?
Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
#80While I am sure that masks and no working from the office played a part in this, I believe: 1) most flu cases are being mislabeled as covid 2) most people who have a mild flu are not going to the doctor 3) the easiest way to test this will be when covid goes away and the flu suddenly reappears.
When Covid goes away, we can assume masking, distancing, and staying home will also go away. In that case, all communicable diseases are likely to increase, from the common cold to STDs.
This is why a tiny fringe of epidemologists has been calling for social distancing to continue for the next several years at least, even after COVID, because they see this as a chance to wipe out other common illnesses. If a person hyperspecializes in a field like epidemology, there is the risk of the person expecting all government policy to revolve around their specific concerns. Sometimes in interviews those epidemologists simply seem oblivious to the effect this will have on live music, theatre, cafes and restaurants, etc., other times they say that we simply cannot allow ourselves those things any more, because saving lives is more important.