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

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#741

Post by nojokes » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 11:58 AM UTC

JoshuaDavid wrote: post #623

darkerside wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 con…

This calculation does not take into account a collapse of the medical system. The problem with covid is the speed of its spread. We see this in India right now. There are not many cases per capita but their limited health care system could not handle this and people suffocate to death.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#742

Post by animal531 » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 12:01 PM UTC

Here where I live we've had a pretty big gastro outbreak not too long ago, baffling doctors.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#743

Post by FearlessNebula » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 12:13 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.

You're probably thinking of the common cold. If you actually had the flu there's a decent chance you'd go to the hospital or at least a doctor who would run a test

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#744

Post by scrollaway » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 12:14 PM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #640

Anybody care to weigh in on something I can't figure out. Last October I had some sort of illness, with severe flu like symptoms. However my nasal swab PCR test, taken 48 hours after symptoms, came back negative. I assumed it was flu, but everything I'm read suggests that flu is virtually unheard of this season. For a standard cold, it seemed to severe (102 F fever, body aches and chills). I also had a strong reactio…

False COVID negative sounds plausible. I would have told you to do a serological test, but if you're already vaccinated then it's too late to know now.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#745

Post by FearlessNebula » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 12:14 PM UTC

bagacrap wrote: post #682

JulianMorrison wrote: post #269

Maybe we were too callous just allowing the ordinary flu to run rampant, and we should consider in future doing things like masking up when a flu season is expected, so as to stop the disease from killing thousands of old people. And also possibly consider going for full eradication rather than harm reduction. Can flu jabs be made more effective, and multi-strain, using mRNA vaccine technology? That's a genuinely new…

The flu doesn't just kill old folks, it kills children as well (unlike covid-19), yet we still never cared enough to take the same precautions.

COVID-19 kills children too

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#746

Post by FearlessNebula » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 12:16 PM UTC

anoncake wrote: post #620

JulianMorrison wrote: post #269

Maybe we were too callous just allowing the ordinary flu to run rampant, and we should consider in future doing things like masking up when a flu season is expected, so as to stop the disease from killing thousands of old people. And also possibly consider going for full eradication rather than harm reduction. Can flu jabs be made more effective, and multi-strain, using mRNA vaccine technology? That's a genuinely new…

During the last year, we have done more than enough to protect old people for the time being.

The people who watched grandma die in the hospital through an iPad would beg to differ.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#747

Post by FearlessNebula » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 12:19 PM UTC

jccooper wrote: post #357

bla3 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought we know by now that transmission mode is more similar than initially thought? That is, it's mostly airborne for both covid and flu.

Flu has significant fomite transmission, both direct and from emissions, where CoV-2 basically has none. Aerosol transmission is present in flu, but nowhere near as strong as CoV-2. There are definitely some overlaps, like direct large droplet transmission (which make measures like masks work for both.) Sanitation and "social distancing" work for flu, but coronavirus is mainly about ventilation.

So hand washing is much more important for the flu? That's great because it is much more in your control than ventilation

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#748

Post by enkid » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 12:27 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #715

javagram wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which will be "fun" because our societies now have a hyperactive immune system, and there will be considerable political pressure to "do something" about the next flu wave. So, do something by taking a flu vaccine like is already available and recommended for annual use by the CDC?

The flu vaccine isn't hugely effective at the best of times, and with flu disappearing worldwide and global travel locked down I don't see how they'll even be able to figure out what strains to target for the next one.

Even when not perfectly matched, the flu vaccine does offer some protection.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#749

Post by FearlessNebula » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 12:31 PM UTC

8bitsrule wrote: post #587

In my experience, lots of people treat the flu like it was 'no big deal', and will happily go to work (or be sent to school) to share with the other children. Covid sounded a lot scarier to them, so in the process of avoiding it, they accidentally did the right thing. Thus the drop in flu cases.

This is so frustrating. So many people think the flu = the cold when in reality if they had the flu they wouldn't even be able to make it to work because they'd be in bed. That is if they're not in a hospital bed which statistically they probably are.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#750

Post by ceejayoz » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 12:39 PM UTC

audessuscest wrote: post #696

ceejayoz wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

You can, though.

If you get a disease's R0 below one, it goes away.

Enough people changed their behavior in both countries to make flu go away, because it no longer spread quickly enough to sustain itself.