{"id":4801,"date":"2021-03-28T14:31:22","date_gmt":"2021-03-28T14:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=4801"},"modified":"2021-03-28T14:31:22","modified_gmt":"2021-03-28T14:31:22","slug":"how-covid-19-ended-flu-season-before-it-started","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=4801","title":{"rendered":"How COVID-19 Ended Flu Season Before It Started"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“Although the U.S. continues to struggle with COVID-19, it has apparently beaten the flu into submission. Since the end of September, the combined total of positive flu cases<\/a> identified by both public health and clinical labs is fewer than 1,500. There are high schools with more people in them. The phenomenon is not only in the United States \u2014 worldwide<\/a>, rates of influenza<\/a> are nearly off-the-charts low<\/a>. When you line multiple years up on the same graph, it can even look like there are no<\/em> cases of flu this year. That\u2019s how out of step we are with the norm.”
…
“This massive shift, experts told me, is likely tied to the precautions we\u2019ve taken to avoid catching COVID-19: mask-wearing, social distancing, obsessive cleaning of surfaces (which doesn\u2019t do much to prevent COVID-19<\/a> but probably is preventing flu) and even keeping kids out of the classroom. \u201cThe major vector for influenza is children,\u201d said David Topham, co-director of the New York Influenza Center of Excellence in Rochester. If they don\u2019t get to breathe on each other like normal, they also can\u2019t transmit as much flu. And that trick still works, even if flu isn\u2019t the reason we\u2019re keeping them distanced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Influenza hasn\u2019t been our target with all these interventions, but we\u2019ve certainly given it a good pummelling. And that\u2019s because flu just isn\u2019t as transmissible as COVID-19.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Our strategies are working on COVID-19, as well. Just not as dramatically, because it was more likely to spread to more people to begin with.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Significantly reduced international travel has probably played a role in that, Brammer said. Usually, our flu season follows that of the Southern Hemisphere. But if there wasn\u2019t much of one there<\/a>, and there wasn\u2019t much travel to transport the virus \u2014 the flu has no way to travel.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“scientists don\u2019t know for certain what\u2019s happening because the trouble with a really, really minuscule flu season is that it doesn\u2019t leave you enough cases to make solid statistical inferences. We don\u2019t know, for example, much about what happens when you get both the flu and COVID-19, because there haven\u2019t been enough cases of it to do good research. We don\u2019t really know how this bottleneck is affecting which strains of flu are circulating for the same reason. We don\u2019t even know, for certain, that it is the masks and distancing that are squashing the flu because there are so few flu cases left to look at.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/fivethirtyeight.com\/features\/how-covid-19-ended-flu-season-before-it-started\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Although the U.S. continues to struggle with COVID-19, it has apparently beaten the flu into submission. Since the end of September, the combined total of positive flu cases identified by both public health and clinical labs is fewer than 1,500. There are high schools with more people in them. The phenomenon is not only in the United States \u2014 worldwide, rates of influenza are nearly off-the-charts low. When you line multiple years up on the same graph, it can even look like there are no cases of flu this year. That\u2019s how out of step we are with the norm.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“This massive shift, experts told me, is likely tied to the precautions we\u2019ve taken to avoid catching COVID-19: mask-wearing, social distancing, obsessive cleaning of surfaces (which doesn\u2019t do much to prevent COVID-19 but probably is preventing flu) and even keeping kids out of the classroom. \u201cThe major vector for influenza is children,\u201d said David Topham, co-director of the New York Influenza Center of Excellence in Rochester. If they don\u2019t get to breathe on each other like normal, they also can\u2019t transmit as much flu. And that trick still works, even if flu isn\u2019t the reason we\u2019re keeping them distanced.
\nInfluenza hasn\u2019t been our target with all these interventions, but we\u2019ve certainly given it a good pummelling. And that\u2019s because flu just isn\u2019t as transmissible as COVID-19.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Our strategies are working on COVID-19, as well. Just not as dramatically, because it was more likely to spread to more people to begin with.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Significantly reduced international travel has probably played a role in that, Brammer said. Usually, our flu season follows that of the Southern Hemisphere. But if there wasn\u2019t much of one there, and there wasn\u2019t much travel to transport the virus \u2014 the flu has no way to travel.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“scientists don\u2019t know for certain what\u2019s happening because the trouble with a really, really minuscule flu season is that it doesn\u2019t leave you enough cases to make solid statistical inferences. We don\u2019t know, for example, much about what happens when you get both the flu and COVID-19, because there haven\u2019t been enough cases of it to do good research. We don\u2019t really know how this bottleneck is affecting which strains of flu are circulating for the same reason. We don\u2019t even know, for certain, that it is the masks and distancing that are squashing the flu because there are so few flu cases left to look at.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[588,409,483,978],"class_list":["post-4801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-corona","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-flu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4802,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4801\/revisions\/4802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}