Actually, we've simply stopped testing for the flu. That's it. All of these comments from so many highly intelligent people, and I don't see a single person hypothesizing this.
My wife is a triage nurse for the largest provider of such services in the US. She's literally spoken to 10s of thousands of patients over the last year, and thousands of nurses, MDs, pharmacy techs, and lab technicians. The main takeaway that she's gotten from the largest testing labs over the last year (think labs in the largest population centers of the US), is that they were not even accepting samples for anything non-COVID related for 95% of the year. They simply stopped testing for the flu. She would routinely have a chat with a lab technician, after an MD would put through an order, with the tech saying "stop sending this stuff to us, we're only testing for COVID for the foreseeable future." This has not stopped.
Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
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Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
#762Not unlike the quote from Demolition Man: "In the future all restaurants are Taco Bell"
Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
#763Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, that implicit assumption is pretty strong. There is an absurd bias to push kids back in schools so parents can get back to work. Still, your points stand that there are some good studies showing kids are not necessarily the major spreaders. It is somewhat surprising to me, but it is data.
I work from home. My wife stays at home and takes care of young kids. We sent our 6 yo back to (in person) school because computer school was a bad idea. I have a friend who teaches high school. He is SO relieved to be ending computer teaching. I think so people want in person school so parents can work, but plenty of people want in person school because it IS better.
> but plenty of people want in person school because it IS better.
For some kids, lots of data showing some kids thrived and improved while others suffered.
Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
#764Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This is absolutely wrong. Labs in all the largest cities in the US, simply stopped accepting samples for anything other than COVID. Source: wife is RN working as triage nurse and interacting daily with the largest testing sites in NY, CA, NJ, IL, etc.etc.etc.
Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
#765Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the province I'm familiar with the Provincial government has canceled all testing for the common Flu unless your in the hospital. This is being misconstrued as the flu disappearing in my province which is obviously true because it's not being test for. It's not being tested for because they are prioritizing COVID-19 testing, unless your hospitalized.
Which province was this? Here in Alberta we did twice as many tests as the year before. https://www.660citynews.com/2021/04/13/zero-cases-of-seasona...
Well this is from the early part of 2020 for Alberta.
https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/influenza/Page14481.asp...
**Please note for all dashboards that as of March 12, community samples are no longer being routinely tested for non-COVID respiratory pathogens including flu.
And if you look at the 2020 - 2021 dashboard
https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/influenza/influenza.asp...
You'll see they don't have any test information for Influenza.
I may be misunderstanding this as it is hard to make sense how the governments statistics show no testing and that news article you mentioned with the chief medical officer for the province saying otherwise.
Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
#766Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know where you live but in Canada we have programs like FluWatchers which send sample groups a survey every week asking about flu-like symptoms, flu vaccinations (and COVID now) and such every flu season. They can also request a voluntary sample from you to help track these things. So the data is there :-)
Interesting, I've never (knowingly) been a part of an epidemiological survey like that.
Yeah it kinda feels cool to be an official FluWatcher, hope I don't lose my status by talking about it ;-)
Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
#767Earlier quoted context omitted.
R0 is not static. As people become immune to the current strains and the virus mutates, people will still have partial immunity to the new strains. Some people will be fully immune depending on their antibody response and the mutations. Next year it is entirely possible that the R0 of covid drops below influenza. If you introduced influenza to a naive population (i.e. native americans) you would get massive death. >
how does that work? Native Americans didn't have disease Europeans where not exposed to? Only Europeans had diseases? any info about this? very interesting
It is one of the major points from Guns, Germs and Steel. Most of our major diseases have transferred from domestic animals. For example both measles and smallpox (the two most deadly diseases for Native Americans) come from cows.
Europeans successfully domesticated animals, Native Americans did not. So Europeans had diseases that Native Americans were not adapted to.
Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
#768Earlier quoted context omitted.
R0 is not static. As people become immune to the current strains and the virus mutates, people will still have partial immunity to the new strains. Some people will be fully immune depending on their antibody response and the mutations. Next year it is entirely possible that the R0 of covid drops below influenza. If you introduced influenza to a naive population (i.e. native americans) you would get massive death. >
how does that work? Native Americans didn't have disease Europeans where not exposed to? Only Europeans had diseases? any info about this? very interesting
I believe the theory is that Europeans kept various domesticated animals and Native Americans had far fewer, and that those animals were frequently sources of new diseases. Europe was also more interconnected, so diseases may have spread farther while Native diseases died out.
See the wiki page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_...
Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
#769Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which province was this? Here in Alberta we did twice as many tests as the year before. https://www.660citynews.com/2021/04/13/zero-cases-of-seasona...
Well this is from the early part of 2020 for Alberta. https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/influenza/Page14481.asp... **Please note for all dashboards that as of March 12, community samples are no longer being routinely tested for non-COVID respiratory pathogens including flu. And if you look at the 2020 - 2021 dashboard https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/influenza/influenza.asp... You'll see they don't have any te…
They never post how many tests were done on that dashboard, you can look at past years and see the same results. That data regarding testing doesn't doesn't seem available yet on the sites, but I see no real reason to doubt the CMO's claim, do you?
Re: Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
#770Earlier quoted context omitted.
The comment you're replying to never mentioned regulations or any governmental intervention.
Ah, so, eliminating the flu with internet memes and a McDonald's ad campaign or whatever? There's no scenario where eradication is realistic without involving government.
I never suggested there was. I understand this is an emotional topic but each reply in this thread seems to be assuming something about the person they're replying to and arguing against something that person never said.