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Flu away: Scientists baffled at disappearance of influenza… however is it actually gone, or simply masked by Covid-19?
There was a 98% plummet in flu infections this yr, dispelling fears of a Covid and flu ‘twin-demic’ about which many had warned. Specialists say we will thank masks and social distancing. However does this actually add up?
Though there isn’t any mass testing for flu as there’s for Covid, the WHO says that surveillance of knowledge from around the globe exhibits flu charges collapsing in every single place. Australia primarily ‘skipped’ their flu season this yr, with not a single case reported since July (their peak). The truth is, flu has roughly vanished all through the Southern Hemisphere, and early indicators recommend it’s going to observe go well with north of the equator. What can clarify this unprecedented decline?
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The place did it go?
To my thoughts there are three potentialities.
The primary is that it solely looks as if the flu has disappeared as a result of docs and scientists have been wrongly classing different respiratory illnesses as Covid. Please observe that the boffins are already treating this suggestion as one thing akin to flat-Earth principle.
The second is that Covid has ‘crowded out’ the flu. It does appear to be the case that you simply can’t be sick with two viruses without delay. A latest examine from Yale College discovered that of 13,000 sufferers admitted to in a significant hospital with respiratory illnesses, virtually nobody ever had each a chilly and the flu on the similar time. The truth is, lung tissue that had been beforehand uncovered to the chilly virus was resistant to the flu virus.
However the scientists say that this resolution doesn’t add up: not more than a fifth of the inhabitants has been uncovered to Covid, and so everybody else ought to be fertile floor for the flu. But when they’re flawed, and Covid is definitely much more widespread than the scientists suppose, ‘virus crowding’ could possibly be contributing to flu’s downfall. (The query is why Covid would have gained this battle so fully, for there to be primarily zero flu instances and tens of millions of Covid ones – absolutely the flu would have gotten to some individuals earlier than Covid did?)
The third chance is the scientists’ rationalization. Earlier than I give it, please observe that both of the primary two potentialities, if appropriate, would render ridiculous your complete response to Covid, not least as a result of it might imply Covid is much much less harmful than has been broadly asserted.
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The decision is in
The scientific institution is rapidly forming ranks behind the idea that the flu has gone away due to Covid restrictions – particularly masks, social distancing and lockdowns. They “overwhelmingly agree” that that is so; their certainty is exceptional at this early stage.
However why would these measures have labored so unintentionally properly for flu, which has been with us for millennia, however Covid instances are nonetheless skyrocketing? Do masks let one particle by way of and cease one other?
The proponents of this principle have a proof. They declare that individuals with Covid are extra contagious than these with flu. It has an extended ‘incubation interval’ than flu does, and its ‘R price’ is 3 times greater than that of flu. However even when all of those estimates had been proper, there’s nonetheless the unanswered query of why flu would have been eradicated so fully.
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Magic masks
For my part, this hand-waving rationalization would possibly simply be probably the most superior act of cognitive dissonance of this complete saga. Specialists are claiming, with a straight face, laxly enforced hodgepodge of restrictions, which varies wildly between nations and areas, has in a single day eradicated an historic scourge of humanity from the face of the Earth. And within the subsequent breath, they warn that the incidence of one other identically transmitted virus is thru the roof.
More likely for my part is that the flu has been confused for Covid within the overwhelming majority of instances. Is it actually so laborious to imagine that flu victims might have been confused for Covid instances? In any case, we all know that lung most cancers sufferers had been. In any case, and no matter the reason, one wonders if the flu’s disappearing act signifies that the largest-ever flu vaccine rollout slated for this winter shall be cancelled. In some way, I feel not.
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