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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

#691

Post by sneak »

irrational wrote: post #565
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.

Same. An entire year plus without a single illness. I haven’t seen anything like it in my 48 years. I’m going to continue to wear a mask when out in public. Now I just need the people I associate with in private to do the same.

An added bonus is that a mask and big sunglasses foils facial recognition. I'm keeping the mask everywhere in public for as long as armed guards don't physically stop me.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#692

Post by sneak »

logicslave wrote: post #305
papito wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stomach viruses. Where in the world are you? No, seriously - where? Because here in the United States people don't wash their hands before eating. It's fucking gross. I always sanitize my hands with alcohol pads before eating out - ALWAYS. But the others grab subway poles, handles, those nasty menus, and THEN they grab that sandwich with the same hands . If anything should come out of this pandemic, it should be Amer…

You do realize this is probably all in your head? Like the food you eat is probably full of bacteria, the plate you eat on, the fork you use? Like you sit there with an attitude, but in the kitchen you cant see your food was cooked on an unclean grill If it makes you feel superior or better, go ahead.

Most of the cooked food is at least 100C for a while. Dishes and utensils in commercial establishments (at least in the US) are by law sanitized either with temperature or bleach solutions. (The silverware drawer is another matter.)

It's pretty hard for bacteria to live on a 200C grill. "Unclean" and "harboring live bacteria" are different things.

You'd be surprised how much care is paid to hygiene in commercial kitchens. It's quite different than cooking at home, as the stakes are a lot higher.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#693

Post by audessuscest »

rconti wrote: post #556
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 remember reading a conspiracy theory back in ~ April 2020 that said "what happened to the flu" / "why are flu cases down so sharply?" It was literally so stupid that it took me a minute or two to understand that the implication was that conspiracy theorists think flu cases were being categorized as covid.

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

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#694

Post by bostik »

ryankemper wrote: post #541
jacobolus wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unlike Covid, kids are a significant vector of spread for influenza Kids are significant spreaders of both influenza and Covid (after school reopenings, in many countries kids become one of the top sources of inter-household Covid spread). They just tend to have mild or absent Covid symptoms and didn’t require regular testing for work etc., and therefore did not get consistently tested in most parts of the world. I…

Actually, what you're saying is untrue. The overwhelming evidence shows that children spread COVID less than adults do. My favorite is this: https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa2006100?articleTo... The study isolated SARS-CoV-2 samples from every positive case, sequenced genome of virus, and tracked the mutation patterns. So, that will avoid a lot of the errors that improper qPCR usage can result in. First thi…

I'm going to lift one part of your quoted material, because this should get more eyeballs:

> We have not found a single instance of a child infecting parents.

That is a really strong claim. It also goes against common logic.

Children are more likely to be asymptomatic. Fine. They tend to resist the virus better, and avoid severe cases even when they do get it. Yup, all good so far. They are less likely to infect others around them. Still makes sense.[ß]

What doesn't make sense is that transmission probabilities in the list are all above zero. From a purely mathematical perspective, transmission probability of "infected child -> parent" should not be zero. I am not stupid enough to dispute scientific finds, but I strongly suspect there are more factors in play.

Also the cynic in me notes that "infected child -> parent" is NOT the same as "infected child -> adult".

ß: Recent news indicates that the latest variants do spread more aggressively among children and teens, and are more likely to show up with symptoms in them. I haven't seen anything about increased mortality among the same groups, though.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#695

Post by michaelmrose »

galangalalgol wrote: post #616
michaelmrose wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who are subject to allergies know they are so and allergies doesn't cause most of the same symptoms. You could probably differentiate most cases of sickness by simply taking your temperature.

I think most people have allergies now don't they? It didn't used to be that way. I get colds with no fever usually.

I think only 1 in 6 or 7 are allergic to anything if you mean seasonal allergies to pollen what most people seem to mean when they say they feel poorly from allergies its only half as prevalent.

That is to say most people don't have allergies to confuse with illness and although you might wake up feeling poorly for a number of reasons flu sufferers are liable to suffer from one or more distinguishable symptoms for example for myself when I've contracted the flu I always get a really shitty body ache.

It's possible to get a cold without also having a fever. You are absolutely correct about that but even in that instance the majority are liable to be able to know when they are ill. They just don't stay home because the social pressure has been in favor of bringing your sickness to work as if you were doing everyone a favor by showing up and making your cohorts sick.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#696

Post by audessuscest »

ceejayoz wrote: post #625
audessuscest wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sweden didn't mandate strict measures. Plenty of folks still took them on their own volition.

No mask, public transports, restaurant, schools open, etc

doesn't matter if even 20% of the population (which is a very high estimate) use some of these measures. You can't explain that the evolution is exactly the same as a Norway...

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#698

Post by dijit »

achenatx wrote: post #487
dijit wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Covid transmits the same way as flu but is more infectious. Measures against Covid work against flu. It’s nice to know that our flu deaths are declining. But our Covid deaths are many times more.

covid might not be more infectious, it might just be less people have any existing partial resistance to sars-cov-2. Each year the flu mutates but it still has overlap with prior variants. As sars-cov-2 mutates seasonal covid might end up less bad than the seasonal flu. Though there is no way to tell.

That is likely to be true but doesn’t really mean anything.

Spanish flu killed millions before less deadly strains mutated and became what we now call flu.

I can’t advocate for any measure that kills millions in the short term, _especially_ without data for the long term.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#699

Post by kelnos »

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…

One thing that would be great would be if people would throw on a mask if they have to go out while they're feeling sick. This is considered common courtesy in some places, but just isn't done much in the West. You could do so yourself even when not sick, and that presumably would help protect you from people who are sick (and are probably not masked), but I expect that will be considered socially "weird" after things go back to normal.

Continuing to wash your hands often and avoid touching your face (especially after touching things in public like door handles, elevator buttons, etc.) probably would help as well.

Agree that social distancing isn't really practical outside of the current situation.

But really, there are just a lot of things that you won't be able to avoid, at least not unless you want to stay at home more often than you used to rather than venturing out. Conference rooms at an office, crowded public areas, public transit, even lining up at a popular takeout restaurant... all of these things make it easier to pick up something from someone else, as virus particles in water droplets can linger in the air for quite some time.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#700

Post by boredtofears »

luxuryballs wrote: post #589
Godel_unicode wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...and I will take that to my grave "When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind. What Do You Do, Sir?"

Real answer? Ask how much faith you have in your religion of “facts”.

So how exactly does your system of belief work?
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