Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic • Hacker News Board

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#161

Post by txsoftwaredev » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 6:18 PM UTC

epmaybe wrote: post #142

brandon272 wrote: post #6

Earlier 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.

I'm really hoping that the culture change in the US is to wear masks in public when feeling ill from a respiratory infection.

Better yet just stay home.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#162

Post by bitexploder » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 6:18 PM UTC

yosito wrote: post #13

al3xandre wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize those « deep cleans » are mostly comms operations for governments to look like they are doing stuff, right? Virus live (mostly) in people, not on sidewalks. One of the most ridiculous example: the Thai government went to the extent of spraying disinfectant in the forest next to the Burmese border, and got pictures published in newspaper to show their great work. Comical! [1] [1] https://twitter.com/thaine…

> You realize those « deep cleans » are mostly comms operations for governments to look like they are doing stuff, right? Yes, but it must have had some effect on fomite transmission of some viruses, right?

Ehh... most viruses really don't live on surfaces very long. Unless they were continuously spraying the whole pandemic on a weekly basis I don't see how it could do much at all. And even if they were doing it every week... most of us get viruses from handled (by humans) surfaces.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#163

Post by throwBlankie » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 6:19 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #148

ketzo wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, viral interference, yes; but I didn’t go inside a restaurant for 13 months. You’re saying that (and masking, and social distancing in general) didn’t affect influenza transmission? Why would it not?

Yeah, and even in places with no mandatory measures, people would widely take voluntary measures against SARS-CoV-2 that would also be effective against other respiratory viruses.

Whether lockdowns/restrictions are "effective" is somewhat conjecture, but likely had an effect. It's also likely that given the global and nearly total nature of this observed phenomenon that other forces are at play such as the competition and immunity stimulus mentioned in OP.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#164

Post by rorykoehler » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 6:19 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #78

If 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.

They can figure it out by Google search volumes though of course this year would be problematic

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#165

Post by ben_w » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 6:19 PM UTC

fidesomnes wrote: post #156

yosito wrote: post #3

While I think this is most likely due to masking, distancing and staying home when sick, which were all far more effective against the flu than against SARS-CoV-2, I wonder how much this was affected by some of the deep cleans that cities were doing at the beginning of the pandemic where they basically sprayed entire cities with disinfectant trucks. Does anyone with more expertise have any thoughts about that?

> While I think this is most likely due to masking, distancing I give it 5 years from now when it is no longer politically intolerable that studies will come out and admit that masks and social distancing did absolutely nothing to slow or prevent infection.

Considering that one year ago the general advice was not to bother with masks, this would be a surprising 360.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#166

Post by rorykoehler » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

gregmac wrote: post #94

BitwiseFool wrote: post #78

If 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.

If you had flu symptoms, are you not going to go get a covid test?

I had Covid symptoms but didn’t bother getting a test because I thought it’s better to stay at home than go out and spread it around.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#167

Post by DanBC » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #78

If 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.

There's intensive community monitoring for flu. Flu's a big deal, which is why there are internationally coordinated programs to monitor which strains are circulating, and then to create and distribute vaccines.

See this for an example of the work involved in the UK: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#168

Post by ravenstine » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

ketzo wrote: post #143

jMyles wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s nothing silly about a novel virus having greater abilities to overcome barriers when compared to other pathogens that humans have had years decades and centuries to develop defenses again. Agreed! What you are describing is viral interference: population-level immune responses to one respiratory pathogen causing suppression of others. We've seen selective suppression of influenza and all of the other four e…

Sure, viral interference, yes; but I didn’t go inside a restaurant for 13 months. You’re saying that (and masking, and social distancing in general) didn’t affect influenza transmission? Why would it not?

Fortunately, there's data on this.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e3.htm?s_cid=mm...

Although COVID-19 is definitely more virulent than influenza, it doesn't seem reasonable to just jump to the conclusion of saying "it must be the restrictions". That's definitely part of the equation, and maybe it will turn out to be the entire equation, but we don't know.

> During the study period, states allowed restaurants to reopen for on-premises dining in 3,076 (97.9%) U.S. counties. Changes in daily COVID-19 case and death growth rates were not statistically significant 1–20 and 21–40 days after restrictions were lifted. Allowing on-premises dining at restaurants was associated with 0.9 (p = 0.02), 1.2 (pThis is one hell of a virus, but if what we are seeing is that it still spreads quite rapidly even with all the restrictions, yet the flu, which is also quite virulent, manages to disappear, then I don't think we really have all the facts as to why it has gone away. Maybe it is just that simple?

I guess what I'm saying is that it's a bit concerning just how fast people here are willing to jump to conclusions.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#169

Post by g3e0 » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

ibraheemdev wrote: post #5

Just 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...

I believe the source of that quote comes from this Q&A session with Kary Mullis, the inventor of PCR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT3IqZjT_9A

The relevant quotes from Kary are:

"With PCR, if you do it well, you can find almost anything, in anybody"

"If you can amplify one single molecule up to something that you can really measure - which PCR can do - then there's just.. very few molecules that you don't have at least one single one of them in your body"

"It doesn't tell you that you're sick"

My interpretation is that Kary Mullis did believe it was at least possible to "misinterpret" the results of a PCR test. It doesn't seem such a stretch to believe that you could be sick with the flu, while also having a single molecule of a coronavirus gene present in your nasal cavity (triggering a positive coronavirus test).

Note: I know this is an inflammatory topic. The views of Kary Mullis are not necessarily my own. I am posting this here because I think it is interesting.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#170

Post by rajin444 » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 6:21 PM UTC

panarky wrote: post #89

Every community has a baseline mortality rate during "normal" times. During abnormal times like pandemic, famine and war, more people die than usual, but often the cause isn't known. If you subtract baseline mortality from actual mortality to get excess mortality, that's often a better estimate of the casualties from pandemic, famine and war than the death certificates for every person who died. Excess mortality in m…

> And if there are fewer deaths from flu, and fewer from suicide [1], then excess mortality itself is under-reported and Covid killed even more than we thought.

The majority of covid deaths are those that on average had very few months left to live. There is a likely a high chance these people were going to die to the next "flu" that came around.

How do you account for this? It seems like adding flu deaths on top of covid is incorrect - both would only have a subset of people that are going to die from it, and while covid's is probably more than the flu (depending on the flu strain - we've had some pretty bad flu years), since they both share the same pool I don't think you can add flu deaths in.

On top of that, we had a relatively light flu season preceding covid. This would also need to somehow be accounted for, but I'm not sure how. There was likely a "dry tinder" effect.