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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

#531

Post by marvin »

Pyramus wrote: post #408
Majromax wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

A well-known Norwegian economic commentator pointed this out in a newspaper article a few weeks ago. You'll eventually be forced to maintain an R~=1 no matter what you do, so it's best for everyone if your cases have a low baseline when that happens. The measures will be the same, but the baseline risk can either be terrible or okay.

You can almost see the phenomenon in real time during this pandemic. Countries that have low trust in authorities will still freak out when the epidemic hits biblical proportions, and do various forms of impromptu distancing measures which will bring the R number down. Then when the signs of panic subside, they'll loosen them. And so on.

Societies with high trust in authorities will still pressure their authorities to loosen up when things feel safe, with predictible results, leading to further lockdowns.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#532

Post by audessuscest »

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

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#533

Post by ineedasername »

SkyBelow wrote: post #200
ineedasername wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of Flu infections in the population that did not contract COVID cannot be explained by viral interference. Viral interference would only explain a decreased influenza infection rate among those exposed to COVID.

Combination between efforts to avoid COVID and viral interference of those who were exposed would drastically reduce the ability to spread. Could it perhaps have reduced it enough to have stopped a flu season from developing?

That's pretty much my belief: efforts to avoid COVID also avoid the flu. Viral interference, theoretically, is part of that picture, but does not fully explain the observed data and has not, to my knowledge been tested itself: references to the phenomena as an explanation for flu decreases are based on research for other viruses. Given the HN community frequently criticizes research or reporting on research for overstating it's claims, I am surprised that so many people here have latched on to an extrapolation from research not directly related to COVID.

It seems far simpler, in the Occam's Razor sense, to begin with the idea that staying away from people makes it harder to get sick from other people.

Unfortunately, COVID restrictions and social distancing have become so politicized that many resist the idea that staying away from people reduces the chance of getting the flu from them, because the implication is that those measures might also have been effective in reducing COVID cases. This contradicts a political point of view and therefore some would like to dismiss it out if hand.

For example I've notice that many of those who believe precautions violated their personal liberty want to diminish the effectiveness of those precautions, which isn't necessary from a logical point of view. It is not logically inconsistent to believe these precautions violated civil liberties even if they were highly effective. It just requires a person to believe that many deaths were a reasonable price to pay.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#534

Post by itsangaris »

rubicon33 wrote: post #318
aarondia wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

In non-covid times I'm not nearly this precautious and am super lucky to basically never get sick. I'd be careful of drawing any meaningful conclusions based on just anecdotal experiences.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#535

Post by postalrat »

bsimpson wrote: post #517
jvm_ wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems there's a battle between virus's, they don't like sharing resources and the 'strongest' wins. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56483445 Coronavirus: How the common cold can boot out Covid Think of the cells in your nose, throat and lungs as being like a row of houses. Once a virus gets inside, it can either hold the door open to let in other viruses, or it can nail the door shut and keep its new home to itsel…

Begs the obvious question: could you intentionally infect someone with a mild, greedy virus to displace a more dangerous one?

It seems possible. Timing would need to be right though so you would probably need to purposely infect that person with the dangerous one at the right time.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#536

Post by userbinator »

papito wrote: post #412
kat wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also a whole host of mental illness that are triggered by physical immune responses. Eating disorders that stem from one bad diarrhea episode are a really common example of this. Both ends of this spectrum can result in bad mental health. Both ends of this spectrum can also result in physicals health issues too. Get a stomach bug and end up with post-infections IBS. On the other hand, stress from fear of ger…

Sanitizing your hands every five minutes is obviously a disorder, but I don't understand why on HN the downvote army is triggered by suggesting that you should have clean hands before eating food.

The question is, how clean is "clean"? Obviously in these pandemic times the answer is different, but clearly plenty of people were having no problems before.

In fact I would go as far as saying that breathing is a more common route of entry for pathogens than eating. The stomach contains concentrated hydrochloric acid.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#537

Post by jaegerpicker »

kube-system wrote: post #464
nodamage wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's disappointing to see this type of misinformation being spread on HN. All you need to do is look at all-cause mortality in 2020 compared to previous years to easily disprove this: https://i.imgur.com/z9RsQ8e.png

I haven't seen this before, thanks for sharing. Do you know the original source?

Not the Parent but the orignal numbers come form the CDC but I'm not sure where the graph is from. Here are links to the last two years of data, embedded in a comment I made on HN recently:

From the CDC: In 2019, a total of 2,854,838 resident deaths were registered in the United States—15,633 more deaths than in 2018. In 2020, approximately 3,358,814 deaths occurred in the United States (Table). The age-adjusted rate was 828.7 deaths per 100,000 population, an increase of 15.9% from 715.2 in 2019.

ref: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db395.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7014e1.htm

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#538

Post by cortesoft »

ggggtez wrote: post #372
cortesoft wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think not going to the doctor for mild illnesses is a strictly US thing.

The flu isn't a "mild illness" for everyone. Again, stop assuming that everyone is as healthy as you are. The flu kills many people every year.

Of course, but I would say that most people who get the flu don’t experience bad enough symptoms to go to the doctor.

I am not sure what your point is with the assuming everyone is healthy. No one is saying that the flu can’t be deadly. The entire thread is about how you calculate how many people got the flu in a year. Some people suffer severe symptoms from the flu, go to the doctor, and are recorded in the statistics as having had the flu. Many people, however, don’t have bad enough symptoms and therefore don’t go to the doctor and are not tracked in the statistics as having had the flu.

The question is how do they figure out the actual rates when a large portion of cases are never recorded.

What does my own health or the fact that the flu kills many people have to do with that question?

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#539

Post by sokoloff »

jampekka wrote: post #529
galangalalgol wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The normal flu can be pretty bad. In 2018 the spike in total deaths in TX and surrounding states were between a third and a half of the covid spike in those regions. Masks might have been a good idea in 2018 and I hope they become part of our culture at least when you think you might be coming down with something. You know, that first day of a cold when you are telling yourself its allergies or drainage. Shutting dow…

How about a culture and social support system where you can just stay home and rest if you feel something's up? Probably a lot more efficient than a mask, and would probably help with lots of other problems as well.

Plenty of people, hourly, gig, and self-employed people don’t get paid if they don’t work. You might be able to force some of those to be paid while sick-not-working, but the last category will be very difficult to address without either missing a lot of folks or creating tons of fraud and grift risk (and represent a lot of interactions with the public).

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#540

Post by alexnewman »

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 believe there’s been placebo controlled studies that show that masks to not stop the spread of influenza . I haven’t read the papers, just something I’ve seen mentioned on medcram.
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