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

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#631

Post by colordrops » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 2:20 AM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #488

timr wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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…

It should be an internet rule that whenever someone calls something scientific or trashing something as poor science, they should provide scientific references. I'm referring to you here.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#632

Post by travisp » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 2:22 AM UTC

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…

I too rarely got sick for years, even with international travel. Until I had kids, which I notice you don't mention anywhere in your comment.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#633

Post by JoshuaDavid » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 2:22 AM UTC

Splendor wrote: post #493

trutannus wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the rather low mortality rate for the flu, I think implementing more regulations in our lives isn't a good idea. Bureaucratic creep is a serious issue, and this sort of thing could be a gateway to regulating more aspects of life down the road. Educating people and encouraging them to wear masks 100%, but let's not start mandating anything new, or levying new fines that we have already seen be disproportionately…

The comment you're replying to never mentioned regulations or any governmental intervention.

Out of curiosity, how do you envision going for full eradication without governmental intervention?

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#634

Post by travisp » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 2:22 AM UTC

skocznymroczny wrote: post #424

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.

Exactly. If you renamed flu to FLU-21, did extensive testing for the flu (doesn't really matter how reliable the tests are), you'd have a pandemic every year.

This is just wrong. Vastly more tests were done for the flu during the covid pandemic than have ever been done.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#635

Post by seoaeu » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 2:23 AM UTC

samatman wrote: post #465

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…

We're not talking about a single flu season, effectively we're talking about skipping an entire flu season. Influenza is pretty promiscuous. In normal conditions, very few people aren't exposed to it: either their existing immune resistance (vaccinated or otherwise) is up to the job, or it isn't. Mutation is therefore the primary driver of flu, year upon year. This is why vaccines are continually reformulated for a b…

> Like it or not, masking has minimal effect on spreading aerosols

[citation needed]

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#636

Post by anonymouse008 » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 2:23 AM UTC

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…

Has anyone given the consideration that many of the positive tests have been common coronavirus colds or other things that may resemble flu and be diagnosed as such in a ICD10/CPT data dump ?

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#637

Post by sillystring » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 2:26 AM UTC

Nah. They count every puliminary death as flu. They just called it covid last year.

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#638

Post by gregwebs » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 2:26 AM UTC

I saw this same information about flu disappearing in Hong Kong about a year ago. So this wasn't a matter of predicting an effect so much as translating it from one region of the world to another.

And yet the medical establishment in the US has continued to push the flu vaccine on everyone. I can only assume that this over-zealousness helps the anti-vaccine movement.

BTW, the flu death stats quoted in this article are mostly from pneumonia rather than influenza [1]

[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#639

Post by michaelmrose » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 2:26 AM UTC

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?

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?

Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic

#640

Post by dcolkitt » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 2:30 AM UTC

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 reaction to the first Covid vaccine dose. What's the most likely explanation here?