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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

#781

Post by crazygringo »

irrational wrote: post #573
crazygringo wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately if you take crowded subways or buses, or have meetings in small rooms with coworkers who have young children in school, none of that matters. You still WILL get sick. It doesn't matter how much you wash your hands, or cook food at home. Plenty of germs are airborne and linger. Unless you stay at home all day long, you're going to get sick. Now some people have much more effective immune systems than oth…

Not if you wear a mask and wash your hands immediately afterwards. I haven’t been in an in person meeting since COVID started, but I’m wearing a mask to the next one I attend.

Not true.

Wearing a mask is more to prevent spreading a virus you have, than to prevent you from getting a virus. In other words, the main benefit of masks is to prevent people with COVID or the flu from sneezing and infecting others.

If you're healthy, wearing a mask is not going to provide a ton of protection from infectious people near you not wearing masks. A little bit of protection, but not a lot.

So unless you can convince everyone else in your meeting to wear a mask as well, it's not going to make a major difference, sadly.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#782

Post by FearlessNebula »

anoncake wrote: post #774
FearlessNebula wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't think so. Not only was grandma not protected after all (if it even was Covid that she died of), she wasn't even allowed to have her family with her. And really: Emotional arguments like that help no one. Yes, people suffer badly because of Covid. They also suffer badly because of lockdowns. At that level of detail, there's no difference. What we need are numbers, something we can meaningfully compare. Like, h…

How would lockdown destroy somebodies life? Schools were open remotely, it's not like education grinded to a halt. I agree that hairdressers and churches should have been closed.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#783

Post by mike00632 »

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.

Most Covid-19 tests also test for the flu.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#784

Post by jjeaff »

darkerside wrote: post #667
jjeaff wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That extrapolation only works if the flu is equally as contagious as covid and also has identical methods of transmission (for example, it may be that covid transmits through the air more readily than the flu). But we know that covid is actually quite a bit more contagious, so you can't really make a linear extrapolation like that.

If it's more contagious, would you assume social distancing would have a greater or lesser effect? It's not clear to me either way. Other answers on here have convinced me however that 50M is not a reasonable number.

All else being equal, mitigation efforts are going to have less effect on the more contagious disease. 6 feet social distance with a mask might be plenty to nearly eradicate the flu while it only somewhat reduces covid. Washing your hands frequently may have a very profound effect on the flu but very little effect on covid since it seems to transmit more through the air.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#785

Post by CodeWriter23 »

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…

Nope. Has everything to do with P&I death figures being expanded to CP&I (coronavirus, pneumonia & influenza). Thanks for playing.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#786

Post by andrewchambers »

timr wrote: post #271
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....the flu has a base reproduction number (R0) less than 2....Covid has an R0 in the vicinity of 2.5....In the meantime, public health measures like masking and distancing will work against both viruses....there's really no need for conspiracy theorizing. Assuming that this is due to "masking and distancing" and the small difference…

My feeling is people are told to stay home when sick with flu like symptoms, this would also specifically target flu.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#787

Post by 0x445442 »

mattei wrote: post #558
0x445442 wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Due to T-Cell immunity, a max of 20% of the population was ever going to catch the CV19 version of the flu anyway. Its obvious at this point the reaction was extremely disproportional to the risk.

I'm interested to know more, do you have any sources on this?

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-020-00808-x.pdf

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#788

Post by 0x445442 »

michaelmrose wrote: post #639
mattei wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested to know more, do you have any sources on this?

The fact that he called covid a flu varient have tipped you off to the level of expertise involved. Did you really get hooked by this bait?

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-020-00808-x.pdf

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#789

Post by michaelmrose »

0x445442 wrote: post #788
michaelmrose wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that he called covid a flu varient have tipped you off to the level of expertise involved. Did you really get hooked by this bait?

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-020-00808-x.pdf

That doesn't say that covid is a variant of influenza and towards the end of the July it was believed that aprox 20% of New York City residents had already been infected with covid.

https://www.mountsinai.org/about/newsroom/2020/study-finds-1... It's a discussion of a study published in nature last November.

Despite this cases rose very sharply between October and early January. Your theory doesn't comport with reality as observed.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#790

Post by 0x445442 »

michaelmrose wrote: post #789
0x445442 wrote: post #788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-020-00808-x.pdf

That doesn't say that covid is a variant of influenza and towards the end of the July it was believed that aprox 20% of New York City residents had already been infected with covid. https://www.mountsinai.org/about/newsroom/2020/study-finds-1... It's a discussion of a study published in nature last November. Despite this cases rose very sharply between October and early January. Your theory doesn't comport with reali…

It says no more the 20% of the population was going to catch it, which was the claim of the comment.
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