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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

#621

Post by Fomite »

anoncake wrote: post #619
Fomite wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true. The definition for a flu epidemic is two standard deviations above the expected cases for influenza that year, as estimated by a Serfling-type regression model using a negative binomial distribution. Influenza just doesn't breach that barrier for more than a few weeks most years, and rarely in widespread geographic areas at once. Compare that to SARS-CoV-2, where the expected number of cases is zero.…

Then that definition is garbage. How bad a disease is does not depend on how bad you expect it to be.

"Epidemic" isn't "Is a disease bad?". It's "Is this disease occurring at a level above expected?"

You can have very serious endemic diseases - malaria is one example. But "Occurring to a level above expected" is an important piece of information all its own - for example, five cases of Smallpox, while only five cases, is something of an emergency, whereas five cases of influenza is not a serious crisis.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#623

Post by JoshuaDavid »

darkerside wrote: post #615
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'm really excited to see this thread on HN because I've got a question about flu vs COVID, and I feel like this is my only (slim) chance to get a non-politicized answer to it. It's a simple question. Flu deaths in the US have dropped precipitously. This past flu season resulted in (very roughly) ~1% of the deaths of previous seasons. It seems obvious that this is primarily due to social distancing efforts as you say…

32.8 million Americans have had confirmed positive tests for COVID-19 as of April 26[1], and the current US population is 328.2 million, so at a minimum 10% of the people in the US have gotten COVID. A maximum of 100% of the people in the US could be infected[2], so that implies an upper bound of 10x worse or 5M deaths averted by all interventions combined. US CDC estimates that about 3 - 3.5x as many people have contracted as have tested positive[3], so a more realistic upper bound is that COVID-19 would have been 3x worse without any intervention (assuming that 100% of people would have been infected without intervention).

So that gives you an upper bound. I'm not sure how to get a lower bound but it might be possible for someone with sufficient statistical know-how.

[1] https://www.statista.com/topics/6084/coronavirus-covid-19-in...

[2] I'm ignoring reinfections here since, while reinfections happen, they are quite rare relative to first-time infections everywhere I have seen

[3] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd... -- note this is as of January 15, when there were 24.2 million confirmed cases, and CDC estimated that there were about 83.1 million total cases.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#624

Post by fallingfrog »

fallingfrog wrote: post #403
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?”

I’m not lying you know. I did say this, and everyone I said it too either said that they had also had the same thought, or if they hadn’t, they still agreed after thinking about it for a moment. That includes conservatives. Anyone could have seen it coming, and many did. It was only after that fact that the conspiracy memes started going around.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#625

Post by ceejayoz »

audessuscest wrote: post #532
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…

https://twitter.com/ianmSC/status/1387864442386325504

Sweden didn't mandate strict measures.

Plenty of folks still took them on their own volition.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#626

Post by graeme »

taeric wrote: post #303
graeme wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be sensible to improve school air quality: increase ventilation, install air purifiers, etc That would reduce the spread of infectious diseases even with schools open as normal.

I mean. Yes. But kids also touch things far more than adults. Combined with less developed immune systems, I suspect there is a floor to how well you can reduce transmission. More, it is almost certainly related to this densely populated the school is. Which, not surprisingly, will hit poor schools harder. Edit: furthering this idea, buses are not likely to keep the same protocols they have now.

For sure. But even, say, a 20% reduction would be super valuable for society as a whole. There should be cognition benefits to improving indoor air quality in schools too.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#627

Post by anoncake »

Fomite wrote: post #621
anoncake wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then that definition is garbage. How bad a disease is does not depend on how bad you expect it to be.

"Epidemic" isn't "Is a disease bad?". It's "Is this disease occurring at a level above expected?" You can have very serious endemic diseases - malaria is one example. But "Occurring to a level above expected" is an important piece of information all its own - for example, five cases of Smallpox, while only five cases, is something of an emergency, whereas five cases of influenza is not a serious crisis.

Yes, that's the technical definition, which no layperson cares about.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#628

Post by adolph »

darkerside wrote: post #615
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'm really excited to see this thread on HN because I've got a question about flu vs COVID, and I feel like this is my only (slim) chance to get a non-politicized answer to it. It's a simple question. Flu deaths in the US have dropped precipitously. This past flu season resulted in (very roughly) ~1% of the deaths of previous seasons. It seems obvious that this is primarily due to social distancing efforts as you say…

The difference might be in flu deaths being confounded by C19 deaths in vulnerable populations. An example might be a person with a weakened immune system. In an alternate timeline without C19 they would have died of flu. In the real world they caught C19 first and died of that instead.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#629

Post by Fomite »

anoncake wrote: post #627
Fomite wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Epidemic" isn't "Is a disease bad?". It's "Is this disease occurring at a level above expected?" You can have very serious endemic diseases - malaria is one example. But "Occurring to a level above expected" is an important piece of information all its own - for example, five cases of Smallpox, while only five cases, is something of an emergency, whereas five cases of influenza is not a serious crisis.

Yes, that's the technical definition, which no layperson cares about.

The comment I was replying to was talking about renaming diseases, doing extensive testing, and declaring a pandemic.

That's all based on the people who would use the technical definition.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#630

Post by taeric »

graeme wrote: post #626
taeric wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean. Yes. But kids also touch things far more than adults. Combined with less developed immune systems, I suspect there is a floor to how well you can reduce transmission. More, it is almost certainly related to this densely populated the school is. Which, not surprisingly, will hit poor schools harder. Edit: furthering this idea, buses are not likely to keep the same protocols they have now.

For sure. But even, say, a 20% reduction would be super valuable for society as a whole. There should be cognition benefits to improving indoor air quality in schools too.

Agreed. I just wouldn't expect it to hit zero.
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