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Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#401

Post by fullshark »

Majromax wrote: post #237

This should not come as a surprise, and it was largely predictable from the outset. The flu has a base reproduction number (R0) less than 2 ( https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/coronavirus/2020/12/07/covid-19... ). Covid has an R0 in the vicinity of 2.5 ( https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena... ). In the meantime, public health measures like masking and distancing will work against both viruses. If…

> This should not come as a surprise, and it was largely predictable from the outset.

That explains all these news stories telling me what to expect:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/experts-warn-twindemic-...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/09/19/covid-...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-we-can-avoid-...

etc:

https://www.google.com/search?q=twindemic&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:9...

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#402

Post by alliao »

trutannus wrote: post #384
vanshg wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it's because folks who were feeling sick got tested for Covid first, and upon a negative Covid result, assumed (likely correctly) that it was just flu and didn't get a flu test

I think you're on the right track, likely our optics into the flu has disappeared. Not the flu itself.

in new zealand at least the disappearance of flu is genuine, as hospitals routinely checks and it just never showed up

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#403

Post by fallingfrog »

Majromax wrote: post #237

This should not come as a surprise, and it was largely predictable from the outset. The flu has a base reproduction number (R0) less than 2 ( https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/coronavirus/2020/12/07/covid-19... ). Covid has an R0 in the vicinity of 2.5 ( https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena... ). In the meantime, public health measures like masking and distancing will work against both viruses. If…

I actually told people at the outset of the covid lockdowns, “at least we won’t have a flu season this year.” Then later on I saw people online floating this as some kind of conspiracy and I thought, “wait, this wasn’t obvious to everyone?”

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#404

Post by shanecleveland »

gorbachev wrote: post #262

I was just commenting to a co-worker my entire family hasn't been sick since the pandemic started. That is very unusual for a family with young children. No flu, no stomach viruses, absolutely nothing for more than a year now. Thankfully no covid-19 either.

Came here to say the same. Winters are typically a string of constant runny noses and a stomach bug or two usually makes its way through the entire family each year.

Literally nothing.

While it is nice, I would definitely trade it for my kids to have normal social lives again.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#405

Post by frockington1 »

kingsuper20 wrote: post #279
bombcar wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect a significant reduction of flu vectors is simply closed schools.

Boom. Got it in one, although I expect that a few flu cases are being blamed on Covid. Maybe in a couple more generations of improvement of telepresence we can mostly eradicate infectious disease. Next up: We each get a nutrient bath and direct hook-up.

You may be interested in Soylent as a food source. It's the closest thing I can find to hooking up to an IV for nutrients

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#406

Post by f6v »

aarondia wrote: post #300
gorbachev wrote: post #262

I was just commenting to a co-worker my entire family hasn't been sick since the pandemic started. That is very unusual for a family with young children. No flu, no stomach viruses, absolutely nothing for more than a year now. Thankfully no covid-19 either.

This year was a great experiment in person hygiene. It was the healthiest I have ever been for a full year, no colds, stomach bugs, anything. I'm not sure which practices I'll continue, but its definitely shown me that I have wayyyy more control over my health than I previously thought. Curious what others think are the most effective continued practices. Seems like social distancing isn't super reasonable, but maybe…

Usually my colleagues at the office didn’t wash their hands before eating and showed not so great overall hygiene. They also missed many days due to “stomach bug”. And then there’re people with children, they’re always sick. Yes, it’s been a great year in terms of not having to deal with many people. But I have to say I’m a bit worried it’ll go back to usual soon.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#407

Post by didericis »

Majromax wrote: post #331
havewetsalt wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's conspiracy theory by definition if it falls outside the official narrative. So even science can be a conspiracy theory. In fact, real science has a tendency to be viewed (by non-scientists, it should go without saying) as conspiracy theory insofar as it challenges the official narrative, and invokes complicated explanations, rather than a nice simple answer.

No, a conspiracy theory "by definition" requires collaboration between several human agents. In this overall thread, the idea that the "disappearance" of flu is driven by political desire to label all respiratory illnesses as covid cases would be an example of a conspiracy theory. Another commenter brings up the idea of 'viral interference.' This is not an example of a conspiracy theory, but I do not give the idea gr…

> the idea that the "disappearance" of flu is driven by political desire to label all respiratory illnesses as covid cases would be an example of a conspiracy theory.

You’d also have to claim that mislabelling was done deliberately for it to be conspiratorial.

I don’t think politically motivated distortions of perception are conspiratorial if those who are prone to mislabel things due to their belief system do so without realizing.

Not saying that’s an applicable explanation for the disappearance of flu, as it seems way too universal, just going further into semantics.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#408

Post by Pyramus »

Majromax wrote: post #373
samatman wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small but important correction: nothing can make epidemiological spread non-exponential. Driving base reproduction below one additional infection per infected patient means the exponent is less than one, so the incidence of the disease rapidly decreases. This decrease is also exponential by definition: infection is simply an exponential process, and an exponential equation doesn't stop being what it is when the expon…

> The steady state is exactly 1, which is like balancing a pencil on its point. At exactly one, it's indeterminate; you could see a subexponential growth or decay. With no exponential terms remaining, lower-order terms that are ordinarily hidden by exponential growth become the dominant observables. (Since epidemic spread is also random, you're much more likely to see the stochastic terms show up in the overall stati…

By the way, now that we are already talking about R ~= 1 ...

Over pretty much the last year you could observe, in different countries all around the world, that the reproduction number was 'magically' floating around 1.

Only recently did I learn that this effect was puzzling for epidemiologists as well and was only solved around 2012 (?) in a model that assumes a network of information about the disease in parallel to the network of disease transmission. The resulting feedback loops lead to the meta-stability of R=1. Super interesting how society acts as this distributed information processor, similar to 'the market' in economics.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#409

Post by f6v »

allturtles wrote: post #330
rubicon33 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do a LOT. I haven't been sick once in 6+ years because I do the following: 1) Almost never eat out. Home cooked meals that I've prepped / washed. This was single handedly the biggest factor that completely removed "getting sick" from my life. 2) Hand wash before touching face, or food. 3) Avoid sick people. If I hear someone coughing or sneezing, I move away from them. Call me a germ freak, I don't care, I've…

4) Don't have children.

There’s no way to avoid them even if you don’t have your own. There’s always a parent-colleague you have to deal with, unless you WFH.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#410

Post by biomcgary »

im3w1l wrote: post #396
samatman wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small but important correction: nothing can make epidemiological spread non-exponential. Driving base reproduction below one additional infection per infected patient means the exponent is less than one, so the incidence of the disease rapidly decreases. This decrease is also exponential by definition: infection is simply an exponential process, and an exponential equation doesn't stop being what it is when the expon…

At a super fundamental level, epidemics take place on a social graph. In a well connected graph spread will be exponential, but depending on graph shape it could be something else. In particular you could imagine that if people never venture outside their own block that the social network is an euclidean graph. In an ideal case where people are evenly spaced in the plane and only interact with neighbors, the disease…

You are essentially describing a supersized plaque assay (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_quantification#Plaque_as...).
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