[HN Gopher] Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
___________________________________________________________________
Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 414 points
Date : 2021-04-29 15:48 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
| temptemptemp111 wrote:
| Pages of PhD rationalizations! Hahahaha!
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| 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.
| ineedasername wrote:
| There is literally an entire industrial complex setup to fight
| the flu on an annual basis, including massive testing &
| tracking. This is how we have data on annual flu infections. If
| anything, this year would have been an excellent year to find
| _more_ flu infections as many people who got sick didn 't
| simply stay home and get over the illness, they went & got
| tested.
| dnautics wrote:
| do people coming in to get tested for corona generally get
| tested for the flu?
| ectopod wrote:
| Not in the UK. My cousin just had a bad dose of something.
| It's not covid (negative test, he's vaccinated and he had
| covid a few months ago) and it's not life-threatening so,
| quite reasonably, nobody cares what it is.
| matwood wrote:
| Early in the pandemic, absolutely. It was easier/quicker to
| test for the flu and rule out covid, than test for covid to
| rule out the flu.
| meragrin_ wrote:
| How does testing positive for the flu rule out covid?
| What is to prevent someone from having both?
| GavinMcG wrote:
| No idea on the technical answer, but the healthcare
| logistics answer is that because it's not all that
| likely, a positive flu test was a decent stand-in when
| COVID tests weren't widely available.
| jtolmar wrote:
| Say 1 in 10 people have flu and 1 in 10 have covid. In a
| population of 100, 9 have just flu, 9 have just covid,
| and 1 has both. Those 19 people present similar symptoms,
| and anyone among them has roughly a 53% chance of having
| each disease. They take a flu test and it comes up
| positive. Now they're either one of the 9 with just flu,
| or the one unlucky person with both, so there's only a
| 10% chance they have covid.
|
| The impact of this effect changes if has-flu and has-
| covid are correlated, but it's still there unless it's a
| 100% correlation.
| phhlho wrote:
| Don't know how widespread it was, but for my wife who had
| bi-weekly Covid tests for work they also started testing
| the samples simultaneously for the flu.
| barbazoo wrote:
| I went to the hospital a few months ago for something that
| could have been covid-19 and they did test the various
| influenza strains as well as the covid one. Not sure how
| representative that is though. I don't think the covid-19
| swab or gurgle tests automatically test for the flu as
| well.
| opk wrote:
| I've never known a doctor actually run a test for flu. You
| couldn't even get a test for Covid either for much of last
| year, even if the symptoms were blatant. I know a few people
| who simply stayed home with Covid symptoms and never ventured
| out to a doctor - and thus were never counted in the
| statistics.
|
| I had bad flu last year and because of home working, I went
| back to "work" once I reached the number of days after which
| I needed a doctor's note. In normal times I'd have gone to
| the doctor to get a sick note rather than infect my
| colleagues.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Your awareness on flu testing is an indication of the
| limits of your knowledge, not a lack of testing. Others in
| this discussion have provided links with hard data on
| testing from the CDC for the US. For a world-wide picture,
| FluNet w/ GISRS also provide data on testing.
|
| These form the basis of overall infection estimates. If you
| are interested in the methodology of those estimates, here
| is the CDC overviews, complete with citations for the
| primary research that informed the creation of their
| models: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/how-cdc-
| estimates.htm#e...
| rorykoehler wrote:
| They can figure it out by Google search volumes though of
| course this year would be problematic
| skocznymroczny wrote:
| 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.
| DanBC wrote:
| There's intensive community monitoring for flu. Flu's a big
| deal, which is why there are internationally coordinated
| programs to monitor which strains are circulating, and then to
| create and distribute vaccines.
|
| See this for an example of the work involved in the UK:
| https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
| ggggtez wrote:
| >worldwide
|
| Because people outside the US actually see their doctors when
| they get sick? Or people who are otherwise
| older/younger/immunocompromised etc.
|
| Don't just assume that everyone is a young healthy person like
| yourself.
| cortesoft wrote:
| I don't think not going to the doctor for mild illnesses is a
| strictly US thing.
| ggggtez wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| gregmac wrote:
| If you had flu symptoms, are you not going to go get a covid
| test?
| rorykoehler wrote:
| I had Covid symptoms but didn't bother getting a test because
| I thought it's better to stay at home than go out and spread
| it around.
| samiru wrote:
| I have had a flu the last year twice, both times tested
| negative.
| willcipriano wrote:
| I'm not OP but no, I work from home and only see the people I
| live with since this started. Knowing if its covid vs the flu
| wouldn't really matter much to me and either way my behavior
| would be the same. Frankly it would be worse for public
| health if I left the house while sick to satisfy my
| curiosity.
|
| I can imagine that many others in my situation would come to
| a similar conclusion.
| qw3rty01 wrote:
| Do the people you live with also work from home and never
| go out?
| qudat wrote:
| im in your situation: didnt need to leave my house and
| minimally interacted with people outside of my bubble. I
| felt sick recently and got the covid/flu test.
| drcross wrote:
| Why?
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| If it was me it would be because I wanted to know if I
| need to be extra isolated from the people I live with.
| johtso wrote:
| Also may impact your future immunity. Good to know what
| your clinical history is..
| drcross wrote:
| Exactly. The only result from covid testing it delaying
| your own civil liberties. The vast vast majority of people
| wont ever get covid and a tiny remainder will have
| symptoms, an even smaller number will need to go to bed, a
| smaller number will need to go to hospital and people who
| were going to die this year may die from it. Dont take my
| word for it, this is the opinion of the UKs chief medical
| officer:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzriCFzM5Ys
| ineedasername wrote:
| You are arguing from an _a prior_ position that "do
| nothing" would have the same result of "stay home & other
| precautions".
|
| When you start from that position, you are already
| assuming your point of view is correct, and then using
| the correctness of that point of view in a circular
| manner to support your point of view.
| deadbolt wrote:
| > May 2020
| ceejayoz wrote:
| (For context: about a week before their first wave of
| deaths. Oops.)
|
| https://imgur.com/a/OZzPVuY
| rovr138 wrote:
| >But that doesn't mean you can get away from the fact
| that if we did not do anything, if we let this virus to
| run, we would be back in a very serious situation that
| would threaten many lives and threaten the NHS.
| blueline wrote:
| how do you think they measure (roughly) how many people got the
| flu in previous years?
| pwg wrote:
| By estimation:
|
| From the article:
|
| "the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention _estimated_
| there were roughly 22,000 deaths in the prior season and
| 34,000 two seasons ago. " -- emphasis added
| ineedasername wrote:
| Yes, and that same estimation methodology shows is has
| decreased significantly. But if you want firm numbers,
| here's your source: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/weeklyar
| chives2019-2020/Week0...
| davidcuddeback wrote:
| Estimation usually involves gathering data and applying
| some statistics to the data. The question was about the
| details of that process. "They estimated" isn't telling us
| anything new.
| 16bytes wrote:
| https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm
|
| > How do they measure such things?
|
| By have a sophisticated surveillance network and testing
| people. To quote from the above page, there have been 931,726
| specimens collected since 9/2020, and only 0.2% have been
| positive.
|
| Compare that number to the previous season (13.0%):
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/weeklyarchives2019-2020/Week0...
| Lendal wrote:
| They probably know how many flu cases end up in the hospital or
| urgent care, then extrapolate from that number. They have
| historical data and also geographic, and census data, so they
| can make pretty good statistical estimates.
|
| It's kinda the same math that hardware stores use to figure out
| how many shovels to stock in a given store each week. Nothing
| is a mystery if you have data.
| tombert wrote:
| Genuinely curious; what kind of math are they using to stock
| shovels in hardware stores? I've never heard that before but
| it sounds interesting.
| carlmr wrote:
| Not in that business, but normally you expect certain types
| of shovels to be seasonal. E.g. snow shovels probably sell
| more in winter, gardening shovels more in summer. Add to
| that you can usually look at weather data and refine the
| seasonal estimates, since in a warm winter people buy fewer
| snow shovels, in a cold spring, people buy fewer gardening
| shovels.
|
| Just put all that into some simple regression models and
| you probably get a fairly good estimate.
|
| The trickiest thing is figuring out how out of stock you
| are. How many shovels would you have sold if you hadn't run
| out of stock. So usually you have to be more careful with
| data points when you might have not registered customers
| that didn't get what they want in your store.
| lreeves wrote:
| 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 :-)
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Interesting, I've never (knowingly) been a part of an
| epidemiological survey like that.
| monkeybutton wrote:
| I was in university when the Ontario Health Study began and
| they were giving out Amazon gift cards for participating so
| naturally a ton of students signed up. They send out
| questionnaires to participants every few months.
|
| https://www.ontariohealthstudy.ca/
| thedmstdmstdmst wrote:
| 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.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| 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...
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| In the USA, we have a few organizations that try to keep
| track of the flu. I think they are mostly private companies
| pushing drug ads though.
|
| Before covid hospitals, and doctors, didn't test for the flu
| viruses. Maybe in severe cases?
|
| I know for certain private practice doctors didn't. All you
| saw was a chart on the wall differentiating a cold, from the
| flu.
|
| In the USA, the government tries to target the upcoming flu
| vaccine, but is usually wrong on the strain.
|
| Personally, I think Americans have been dying for years of
| SAR viruses, and the government has been blaming the flu
| virus?
|
| We had a family Thanksgiving in my grandmother's house in
| '98. My sister brought her two very sick kids to the
| holliday. By the next morning (12-16 hrs after exposure) we
| were all sick, with the exception of my brother. 5 people who
| never felt so sick in their lives. I could't even muster the
| energy to take my slacks off before dropping into bed. 7 days
| later my grandmother died. I was always under the impression
| the incubation period was longer than a half day? Whatever
| that virus was, I will never forget it for a lot of reasons.
| And of course, my grandmothers cause of death was
| "complications of the flu", and probally should have been on
| a respirator, and not sent home so soon?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Before covid hospitals, and doctors, didn't test for the
| flu viruses. Maybe in severe cases?
|
| This is simply false.
|
| https://www.modernhealthcare.com/patients/providers-
| switchin...
|
| > In 2018, providers completed between 35 million and 40
| million flu tests in the U.S., including RIDTs that use
| immunoassay technology and molecular tests, flu testing
| company executives said.
|
| Anecdotally, my kids' pediatrician does them any time flu-
| like symptoms are present. Same for strep tests. Both have
| rapid, in-practice tests that require just a swab.
| widget1321 wrote:
| In any of the places I've lived, I've never been to a
| doctor with suspected flu and not been given a flu test of
| some sort. Sure, I've gone in with something and been told
| "this is almost definitely not the flu so we won't test"
| but every doctor my family has seen over the years has done
| flu tests when suspected.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Will flu season be back at some point ?
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Yes, except it will be called covid season.
| jjt-yn_t wrote:
| on NPR recently, tuberculosis [ TB ] rates will likely increase
| for years and years VS had covid19 not made its appearance.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| > The public health measures that slow the spread of the novel
| coronavirus work really well on influenza
|
| s/b
|
| The public health measures that slow the spread of the novel
| coronavirus work really well on FANG earnings.
| osipov wrote:
| haha
| paviva wrote:
| An alternative explanation is that of "viral interference"[1,2],
| i.e., the most transmissible virus boosting up viral immunity in
| the population, and precluding transmission of the less
| transmissible/fit virus
|
| [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5489283/
|
| [2]:
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5...
| jayd16 wrote:
| Would this only show up in the covid infected population?
| akiselev wrote:
| Not necessarily. COVID might be so transmissible that the
| entire world has been exposed to it enough to trigger an
| immune response but only establishes itself and becomes an
| infection in those who get a large enough viral load over a
| short enough time period.
| jayd16 wrote:
| So light COVID exposure would produce enough of an immune
| response to trigger influenza immunity but not COVID
| immunity?
| akiselev wrote:
| It wouldn't produce an immunity, it would just keep the
| innate immune response active enough to prevent the
| average small cluster of COVID or flu viruses from
| replicating and growing into a full blown infection. This
| wouldn't even give the adaptive immune system a chance to
| develop an immunity to either of them.
|
| If someone went to the COVID or flu ward and had someone
| cough in their face, they'd still get infected because
| that kind of exposure is generally too much for the
| innate immune system to catch.
| ManBlanket wrote:
| The first, "alternative explanation" the statistician in me
| wants to mention is perhaps the way influenza data is gathered
| has changed.
|
| "Only people who get tested for influenzalike illnesses--
| typically about 5 percent of individuals who fall ill--are
| tallied."
|
| If there were a change in the way these tests were
| administered, for example a blaring medical bias toward another
| disease, that would present a significant sampling problem.
| That same statistician also wanted me to mention the simplest
| and most boring answers are usually closest to the truth.
| marzell wrote:
| With a lot of people getting tested for COVID "just in case"
| and hypochondriacs constantly checking in with their doctors,
| I'd guess that the percent of flu cases tallied might
| actually be a little bit higher than usual due to COVID
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if there was more flu testing this
| year. I've never intentionally taking a flu test, but some of
| my COVID tests also screened for influenza a/b at the same
| time.
| majormajor wrote:
| A bias towards testing for Covid wouldn't explain fewer cases
| of the flu unless those cases of the flu were coming back as
| Covid falsely instead of so further diagnosis was stopped. If
| you have a bad enough flue to seek treatment, then once you
| get that Covid test and it says "negative", you would move on
| to the next step for treatment. (Consistent with past years -
| nobody was getting flu tested just cause they had a runny
| nose in 2019, it was just the people who needed treatment).
|
| There could be other explanations, such as: a desire to avoid
| Covid causes people to avoid seeking treatment, so more flu
| cases self resolve. OR: a fear of Covid causes more people to
| get tested when they're sick, and some of them may then go
| for flu testing before they would otherwise after coming back
| negative for Covid...?
|
| Seems like the simplest answer is just "actions that have
| reduced the spread of one disease have also reduced the
| spread of another, that's historically less widespread
| already."
| nerdponx wrote:
| How is this assessment affected by limited testing capacity
| and generally overwhelmed medical services?
| jjk166 wrote:
| Maybe in the first few weeks there were some cases
| assumed to be covid that could not be confirmed, but
| testing capacity quickly caught up.
| newacct583 wrote:
| Those links don't allege what you are saying at all... the
| second expressly disclaims any such conclusions given the size
| of the error bars, and the first talks about the protective
| effect of an active _infection_ , not a simultaneous epidemic.
| Needless to say, only a tiny fraction of humanity has been
| actually infected with covid at any one time over the past
| year.
|
| Do you have a link to someone alleging this for covid? I'm
| worried this is spin that you picked up from a source that has
| an interest in opposition to covid mitigation practices.
| Pyramus wrote:
| I thought exactly the same. I recently had a lengthy
| discussion about viral interference here on HN only to learn
| that the person didn't want to see evidence that the
| mitigation measures (i.e. associated human behaviour change!)
| are effective - not only for SARS-Cov-2, but for a broad
| range of viral (and non-viral!) infectious diseases.
| jMyles wrote:
| It's strange to call this an "alternative explanation", since
| it's the one that expert infectious disease researchers, nearly
| without exception, are pointing to.
|
| The (let's face it, silly) notion that masks and distancing
| suppressed all respiratory pathogens except one is a theory
| with very little traction, and which will almost certainly not
| stand up to serious scrutiny.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| > The (let's face it, silly) notion that masks and distancing
| suppressed all respiratory pathogens except one is a theory
| with very little tracti
|
| Are you familiar with the concept of "R0" and that one virus
| may be more transmissible than another?
|
| Flu has an R0 of about 1.5, and whatever covid's is, it's
| higher (last I saw was 2.5).
|
| If we postulate that masking and distancing and similar
| measures act to reduce these numbers across the board, say by
| 0.6, that brings flu down to 0.9 and covid to 1.9. Outbreaks
| don't tend to stay around when their R0 is below 1, which
| would explain why there's hardly any flu this year and plenty
| of covid.
|
| Source: I was trained as a mathematical biologist and did a
| bunch of work with compartmental models: https://en.wikipedia
| .org/wiki/Compartmental_models_in_epidem...
|
| In this admittedly over-simplified model, beta is (per wiki)
| "the average number of contacts per person per time,
| multiplied by the probability of disease transmission in a
| contact between a susceptible and an infectious subject".
|
| Social distancing reduces the average number of contacts,
| masking reduces the probability of transmission, and both act
| to reduce beta. You reduce beta, you reduce R0, you win.
| addicted wrote:
| There's nothing silly about a novel virus having greater
| abilities to overcome barriers when compared to other
| pathogens that humans have had years decades and centuries to
| develop defenses again.
|
| At the end of the day it's likely gonna be the result of a
| combination of all these factors.
| jMyles wrote:
| > There's nothing silly about a novel virus having greater
| abilities to overcome barriers when compared to other
| pathogens that humans have had years decades and centuries
| to develop defenses again.
|
| Agreed! What you are describing _is_ viral interference:
| population-level immune responses to one respiratory
| pathogen causing suppression of others.
|
| We've seen selective suppression of influenza and all of
| the other four endemic coronaviruses, while SARS-CoV-2 has
| thrived. This is true throughout the world, including
| places where stringent horizontal interdictive measures
| were taken, in places where no such measures were taken,
| and in all places in between.
|
| > At the end of the day it's likely gonna be the result of
| a combination of all these factors.
|
| I think it's very unlikely - almost impossibly so - that
| interdiction has played a meaningful role in population-
| level suppression. I don't think it will be a combination;
| I think it will be explained by the same clearly observed
| phenomenon which has been responsible for similar outcomes
| in the past.
| ketzo wrote:
| Sure, viral interference, yes; but I didn't go inside a
| restaurant for 13 months. You're saying that (and
| masking, and social distancing in general) _didn't_
| affect influenza transmission?
|
| Why would it not?
| ravenstine wrote:
| Fortunately, there's data on this.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e3.htm?s_cid
| =mm...
|
| Although COVID-19 is definitely more virulent than
| influenza, it doesn't seem reasonable to just jump to the
| conclusion of saying "it must be the restrictions".
| That's definitely part of the equation, and maybe it will
| turn out to be the entire equation, but we don't know.
|
| > During the study period, states allowed restaurants to
| reopen for on-premises dining in 3,076 (97.9%) U.S.
| counties. Changes in daily COVID-19 case and death growth
| rates were not statistically significant 1-20 and 21-40
| days after restrictions were lifted. Allowing on-premises
| dining at restaurants was associated with 0.9 (p = 0.02),
| 1.2 (p<0.01), and 1.1 (p = 0.04) percentage point
| increases in the case growth rate 41-60, 61-80, and
| 81-100 days, respectively, after restrictions were lifted
| (Table 2) (Figure). Allowing on-premises dining at
| restaurants was associated with 2.2 and 3.0 percentage
| point increases in the death growth rate 61-80 and 81-100
| days, respectively, after restrictions were lifted
| (p<0.01 for both). Daily death growth rates before
| restrictions were lifted were not statistically different
| from those during the reference period, whereas
| significant differences in daily case growth rates were
| observed 41-60 days before restrictions were lifted.
|
| This is one hell of a virus, but if what we are seeing is
| that it still spreads quite rapidly even with all the
| restrictions, yet the flu, which is also quite virulent,
| manages to disappear, then I don't think we really have
| all the facts as to why it has gone away. Maybe it is
| just that simple?
|
| I guess what I'm saying is that it's a bit concerning
| just how fast people here are willing to jump to
| conclusions.
| disgrunt wrote:
| > I guess what I'm saying is that it's a bit concerning
| just how fast people here are willing to jump to
| conclusions.
|
| Well, the CDC/WHO have kind of conditioned them, no? The
| CDC, at least, is starting to realign their guidelines
| with the data.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Yeah, and even in places with no mandatory measures,
| people would widely take voluntary measures against SARS-
| CoV-2 that would also be effective against other
| respiratory viruses.
| throwBlankie wrote:
| Whether lockdowns/restrictions are "effective" is
| somewhat conjecture, but likely had an effect. It's also
| likely that given the global and nearly total nature of
| this observed phenomenon that other forces are at play
| such as the competition and immunity stimulus mentioned
| in OP.
| teh_infallible wrote:
| Blasphemy! Anyone paying attention can see that every person
| with the flu was labeled as having "Covid" but everyone who
| "follows the science" will perform all kinds of mental
| gymnastics to avoid seeing what is obvious.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Did you forget this: /s
| eCa wrote:
| > avoid seeing what is obvious.
|
| Can you explain what is obvious? You seem to allude to
| something, but I'm not sure what that is.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _every person with the flu was labeled as having "Covid"_
|
| I got a cold a few weeks ago. Got tested, it wasn't Covid.
| Where mental gymnastics are needed is in ignoring
| hospitalization and excess mortality statistics.
| ineedasername wrote:
| 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.
| SkyBelow wrote:
| 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?
| tshaddox wrote:
| If a large portion of the people who contracted COVID are
| removed from the set of people who could have potentially
| exposed me to the flu, doesn't that decrease the likelihood
| of me contracting the flu regardless of whether I contracted
| COVID?
| ineedasername wrote:
| Removing those people removes, relatively, an extremely
| small portion of the population. You are removing roughly
| 10% of the population in the U.S., or 2% worldwide. This
| does not explain the magnitude of the decrease observed for
| the flu.
|
| Is it that hard to believe that not being around other
| people limits the chance of getting sick from other people?
| [deleted]
| roody15 wrote:
| Not sure about in other areas, but where i am from the hospital
| systems rarely checked for flu. During the pandemic anyone
| symptomatic was told to stay home. People who visited a health
| clinic were typically first given a covid test. My guess is quite
| a few people who had the flu over the last year likely did not
| get an official flu test since it was difficult to get into a
| hospital or health clinics during the pandemic.
| samiru wrote:
| In Finland Covid can be diagnosed just by flu like symptoms,
| even with a negative test result for Covid.
|
| Not sure how much this affects rhe stats. Practically no cases
| of influenza are recorded, though.
| widget1321 wrote:
| I can't speak for everywhere, but I know that from what I'm
| told here (was actually talking about the lack of flu with some
| nurses who worked in local clinics and hospitals in the area),
| those who had covid-like symptoms were usually given the covid
| test no matter what. But, if flu would have normally been
| suspected and there wasn't a strong indication it was covid
| (loss of smell/taste, known exposure to a covid-positive
| person, etc.), they usually also got a flu test just in case.
| nitrogen wrote:
| I look forward to the day when the standard practice is to
| test for every common respiratory pathogen at once when
| someone has cold/flu symptoms. The technology exists now for
| personalized, data-driven medicine to take off.
|
| I know someone who works for a company who produces such
| tests at the same cost as a single test today, but often
| insurance companies and providers don't know how to bill for
| them, so you see stories in the news about "irresponsible
| doctors who should never have ordered 20 tests" that were
| really a single test billed incorrectly.
| fridif wrote:
| While I am sure that masks and no working from the office played
| a part in this, I believe:
|
| 1) most flu cases are being mislabeled as covid
|
| 2) most people who have a mild flu are not going to the doctor
|
| 3) the easiest way to test this will be when covid goes away and
| the flu suddenly reappears.
| rsynnott wrote:
| In most developed countries, some sort of flu surveillance is
| operated. In some countries, those surveillance operations are
| seeing _no positive cases at all_. They are, however, seeing
| some flu-like symptoms and picking up some rhinovirus (and
| covid).
| ipqk wrote:
| #2 is true for all years, not just this year.
| fecak wrote:
| When Covid goes away, we can assume masking, distancing, and
| staying home will also go away. In that case, all communicable
| diseases are likely to increase, from the common cold to STDs.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| This is why a tiny fringe of epidemologists has been calling
| for social distancing to continue for the next several years
| at least, even after COVID, because they see this as a chance
| to wipe out other common illnesses. If a person
| hyperspecializes in a field like epidemology, there is the
| risk of the person expecting all government policy to revolve
| around their specific concerns. Sometimes in interviews those
| epidemologists simply seem oblivious to the effect this will
| have on live music, theatre, cafes and restaurants, etc.,
| other times they say that we simply cannot allow ourselves
| those things any more, because saving lives is more
| important.
| fridif wrote:
| So two weeks will turn into 5 years, and then still the
| viruses will come back because people are having backyard
| parties.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| No chance. I see enough people breaking social distancing
| rules to ensure that goal is a pipe dream.
| aww_dang wrote:
| I would like to believe that. It seems like the logical thing
| given the provided rationales. However, the cynical view is
| also worth examining.
|
| When has government willingly relinquished emergency powers?
| fridif wrote:
| And thus the flu hasn't disappeared.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Ah, you're reading the word "forever" at the end of that
| sentence, which notably does not actually include the word.
|
| Influenza will likely never be eradicated from the earth
| completely, but in the most recent flu season worldwide, it
| was essentially missing.
| ipaddr wrote:
| You know they do covid tests if they think your flu is covid.
|
| I think you are mixing up half-facts. People were saying that
| deaths with co-factors were being lumped as covid related
| deaths and different countries were classifying things
| differently for political reasons. No one is mislabeling the
| flu as covid and not giving you a covid test to detect the
| strain.
| fridif wrote:
| "No one is mislabeing the flu as covid".
|
| There have been 33 million positive coronavirus cases and 444
| million tests-- are you sure you want to assert the following
| is true 100% of the time:
|
| 1) all covid diagnoses are ONLY covid
|
| 2) all flu occurrences are diagnosed, and when they are
| diagnosed, they are always ONLY diagnosed as flu
| ipaddr wrote:
| A covid tests doesn't test if you have something else. A
| covid test would not detect the flu or a broken leg and
| label it as covid. Depending in the type of test 1/3 could
| be false positive. If your theory was false positives are
| because of flu I'm not sure there is any proof to that
| theory but I would like to hear more.
|
| All flu occurrences were not diagnosed before, this year or
| will be in our future lifetimes. Your doctor telling you
| its the flu and to get rest vs getting a positive for a
| influena A or B test and the percentage that a lab might
| make a mistake on those tests vs the % of time your doctor
| is wrong are two very different ways to think about your
| question. Usually the words 'AlWAYS' and 'ONLY' fail in a
| big population set.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Do viruses timeshare a host or is there a mechanism for one to
| dominate and therefore if you have X you're less likely to
| contract any others?
| intricatedetail wrote:
| How much money big pharma lost on that, is there a study?
| drummer wrote:
| Everyone with flu symptoms now gets diagnosed as having "COVID"
| based on an unreliable and questionable pcr test. It is all a
| scam.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "It's all a misdiagnosis and a scam" is trivially debunked.
| Anyone making this assertion is either incredibly misinformed
| or malicious.
|
| The simplest way to debunk the idea is to look at _total_
| deaths, from all causes, in somewhere like the US.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
|
| Again, _total_ deaths. From any cause. A large spike is
| immediately obvious in the charting.
| https://imgur.com/a/cEhR0Eh
| mehphp wrote:
| What is the goal of this "scam"?
| ehsankia wrote:
| Wow, I always knew Flu was seasonal, but never realized how
| extreme that was. Looking at the North America graph, basically
| after May, the flu almost entirely disappears until the end of
| summer. Roughly 3 orders of magnitude difference between the peak
| and summer time. I would've thought it was closer to maybe 10x.
| vanshg wrote:
| I wonder if it's because folks who were feeling sick got tested
| for Covid first, and upon a negative Covid result, assumed
| (likely correctly) that it was just flu and didn't get a flu
| test
| trutannus wrote:
| I think you're on the right track, likely our optics into the
| flu has disappeared. Not the flu itself.
| alliao wrote:
| in new zealand at least the disappearance of flu is
| genuine, as hospitals routinely checks and it just never
| showed up
| [deleted]
| admeyer wrote:
| When I get the flu I don't report it to flu trackers. Rarely have
| I ever told my doctor. Is this uncommon?
| bumbada wrote:
| It is the most common thing to do. What happens is a small
| percentage of flu cases get complications and need to go to the
| doctor, like for example you get it with other virus and your
| immune system overreacts.
|
| This is the reason doctors know flu is not present, because
| they are not getting those cases they got every year in Winter.
|
| Flu is the main medical issue in Autumn-Winter in most of the
| North hemisphere by quantity.
| yosito wrote:
| While I think this is most likely due to masking, distancing and
| staying home when sick, which were all far more effective against
| the flu than against SARS-CoV-2, I wonder how much this was
| affected by some of the deep cleans that cities were doing at the
| beginning of the pandemic where they basically sprayed entire
| cities with disinfectant trucks. Does anyone with more expertise
| have any thoughts about that?
| al3xandre wrote:
| You realize those << deep cleans >> are mostly comms operations
| for governments to look like they are doing stuff, right? Virus
| live (mostly) in people, not on sidewalks.
|
| One of the most ridiculous example: the Thai government went to
| the extent of spraying disinfectant in the forest next to the
| Burmese border, and got pictures published in newspaper to show
| their great work. Comical! [1]
|
| [1]
| https://twitter.com/thainewsreports/status/13819185863488225...
| yosito wrote:
| > You realize those << deep cleans >> are mostly comms
| operations for governments to look like they are doing stuff,
| right?
|
| Yes, but it must have had some effect on fomite transmission
| of some viruses, right?
| bitexploder wrote:
| Ehh... most viruses really don't live on surfaces very
| long. Unless they were continuously spraying the whole
| pandemic on a weekly basis I don't see how it could do much
| at all. And even if they were doing it every week... most
| of us get viruses from handled (by humans) surfaces.
| he0001 wrote:
| Virus exist everywhere and is the most common entity on
| earth. In a tablespoon of seawater there can be ten
| million of them. Most are not dangerous to man, about 600
| is known. They are also very good to survive on their own
| without a host and can live in most hostile environments.
| soldehierro wrote:
| Viruses aren't alive, and they certainly can't reproduce
| without host cells, so saying that they survive on their
| own doesn't seem like a terribly accurate statement.
| Trying to extend the metaphors of life "alive or dead,
| surviving" to viruses only generates misconceptions,
| instead "viable or inactivated" is a better way of
| looking at it.
| Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL wrote:
| The flu is global, yes? How many cities did your "deep
| cleaning" (I've heard it for the first time)? Out of a
| total of how many cities? I decline your notion on those
| grounds alone.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| My guess is it had an effect for a few hours that day.
| cimi_ wrote:
| Assuming what you're saying is correct (I don't know), what
| other effects does spraying disinfectants everywhere have?
|
| I would be very surprised if doing this is a good idea,
| even if it kills covid and/or flu.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| sunlight already good at kill virus, this have been knowen
| for many year. study find corona is dead from twenty minute
| sunlight alone: https://academic.oup.com/jid/advance-
| article/doi/10.1093/inf...
|
| so maybe not so efective.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| Probably not.
| PeterisP wrote:
| AFAIK fomite transmission on public streets and other
| places sprayed by such "deep cleans" isn't a common spread
| vector for any widespread disease, so eliminating it can't
| make a meaningful difference.
| Retric wrote:
| Even fairly small changes can be significant with
| exponential feedback loops. That's not to say they
| actually had any impact, just that you can't always tell
| what was important.
|
| For example it's possible but unlikely that some other
| pandemic was accidentally prevented.
| andreygrehov wrote:
| Most likely due to people staying at home. I don't believe a
| mask can in any way protect one from catching a virus [1].
|
| Edit: if you downvote, please, comment why. I could be wrong,
| so would love to know your arguments.
|
| [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7680614/
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Find a more credible source.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-stanford-
| masks/fac...
|
| The author lied about his affiliation with Stanford, and the
| paper was retracted.
|
| > Jonathan Davis, a spokesperson for Elsevier, told Reuters
| via email that Medical Hypotheses has since retracted the
| article after concluding it was misleading due to "a broader
| review of existing scientific evidence" showing that masks
| "are an effective prevention of COVID-19 transmission" and
| said that the article contained several misquotes and
| unverified data. Davis said that the author himself had
| submitted the affiliation with Stanford Medicine.
|
| > As reported here by Forbes, Medical Hypotheses has
| previously published articles such as "Is there an
| association between the use of heeled footwear and
| schizophrenia" (here) and "Ejaculation as a potential
| treatment of nasal congestion in mature males" (here).
|
| There's a reason it's titled "Medical _Hypotheses_ ".
| andreygrehov wrote:
| I didn't know the article was retracted. Are there credible
| papers confirming that masks do help?
|
| Edit: also, quoting Reuters is fine. However, quoting
| Forbes is not. Forbes is a trash publication, getting
| published there costs a few hundred bucks.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The Forbes assertions are trivially confirmed.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15325026/
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18434036/
|
| Studies demonstrating mask efficacy are just as easily
| Googleable.
|
| You might not want to be throwing around "trash
| publication" slams here, given your cite.
| andreygrehov wrote:
| I'm confused. Those are all different authors.
|
| I'm saying "trash publication" because I had experience
| working with Forbes. Once again, one can publish at
| Forbes whatever the hell they want. It costs a few
| hundred bucks.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > I'm confused. Those are all different authors.
|
| From the "Medical Hypotheses" journal the Forbes article
| is criticizing for poor editorial control, and citing
| those as examples. At least _read_ the claim you 're
| attempting to debunk.
|
| > Once again, one can publish at Forbes whatever the hell
| they want. It costs a few hundred bucks.
|
| Apparently that's also true for the "Medical Hypotheses"
| journal.
| andreygrehov wrote:
| I read the Reuters fact-check article. In fact, there are
| no facts. It says that the publication has been
| retracted, but from what I can see, that's not true.
| CDC's current response on masks is positive, however
| their initial response was negative. Same for WHO. All in
| all, Reuters rely on a single source - Nature. Nature.com
| is indeed a legitimate source, however the article is
| massive, so I can't say for sure if relying on that
| single source is good enough to make a conclusion.
|
| Edit: also, _nobody_ gives a crap about masks in Florida.
| However, death rates are the same as in California:
| https://apnews.com/article/public-health-health-florida-
| coro...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > It says that the publication has been retracted, but
| from what I can see, that's not true.
|
| I'm sorry, you'll base your beliefs on an article in
| "Medical Hypotheses", but conclude that Reuters is making
| up an Elsevier spokesperson?
|
| I thought "quoting Reuters is fine"; now they're fake
| news?
| andreygrehov wrote:
| Nope. Reuters is still a great source of truth. In fact,
| Reuters is my favorite publication agency. But, it
| doesn't mean they are saint and won't ever bullshit.
|
| > I'm sorry, you'll base your beliefs on an article in
| "Medical Hypotheses".
|
| I haven't made any conclusions yet. I'm still analyzing.
| Both you and Reuters try to belittle the significance of
| an entity based on its name or the titles of their
| publications. While it's possible that the publication is
| pure crap, "belittling" is one of those crappy techniques
| one can rely on to defend their arguments.
| gilbetron wrote:
| That source is awful, just an opinion piece, largely.
| "Wearing facemasks has been demonstrated to have substantial
| adverse physiological and psychological effects. " It's
| literally the opposite. Pure garbage, that link.
|
| Here's some quality sources:
|
| https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118?fbclid=IwAR0j.
| ..
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666142X2.
| ..
|
| https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.12.20173047v.
| ..
| fidesomnes wrote:
| > While I think this is most likely due to masking, distancing
|
| I give it 5 years from now when it is no longer politically
| intolerable that studies will come out and admit that masks and
| social distancing did absolutely nothing to slow or prevent
| infection.
| ben_w wrote:
| Considering that _one year ago_ the general advice was not to
| bother with masks, this would be a surprising 360.
| Karunamon wrote:
| That advice was intentionally deceptive. It was based on
| not having a mass run on PPE needed by healthcare workers,
| not medical science or safety.
|
| It also likely led to more deaths due to the revelation
| that it was a lie, and people treating any further advice
| (which _was actually medically sound_ ) with the same kind
| of cynical skepticism used for liars. Rejection of masks
| wasn't much of a thing before this happened.
| [deleted]
| georgeplusplus wrote:
| Flu - a coronavirus that has been wiped out because of social
| distance and masking and hygiene controls
|
| Covid - a coronavirus that is absolutely rampant because
| insufficient masking, distancing, and hygiene controls
|
| How you rationalize that hypocrisy so easily in your head is
| beyond me.
| oxfordmale wrote:
| The median R value for seasonal influenza(aka flu) was 1.28
| (IQR: 1.19-1.37), whereas the R rate for COVID without any
| protection is much higher. It means people staying at home,
| reducing visits and social distancing might be enough to
| lower the R rate below one for influenza, however, not
| necessarily for COVID as the R rate is higher.
|
| https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471.
| ..
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Whoa, crossing into personal attack and flamewar comments
| like you did here, and elsewhere in this thread, is totally
| not cool on HN, no matter how wrong someone else is or you
| feel they are.
|
| We ban accounts that post like this, because it's so
| destructive of the community we're trying to have here. If
| you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking
| to the rules, we'd be grateful.
| ancientworldnow wrote:
| Flu is an influenza virus not a coronavirus - it's literally
| in the name.
|
| Additionally, varying levels of contagiousness and mechanisms
| of spread absolutely make actions more effective for some
| diseases and less effective or not effective at all for
| others. This is not a controversial statement despite your
| dramatic insistence on ignorance.
| collyw wrote:
| Similar sized virus, respiratory and seasonal. Plenty of
| similarities.
| smolder wrote:
| Influenza is not a coronavirus.
| PEJOE wrote:
| Influenza is not a coronavirus
| deelowe wrote:
| ...
| dang wrote:
| Please don't feed flamewars on HN. We're trying for the
| opposite here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| georgeplusplus wrote:
| "Basic statistics" like occasionally wearing a mask and
| putting up signs to distance despite massive contrary
| evidence like mass protests and spring break? your numbers
| are a joke.
|
| Who knew defeating flu was this easy all along!
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| Flu is not a coronavirus but a completely different one.
| Different viruses behave differently. How hard is that to
| rationalize?
| georgeplusplus wrote:
| You're right. Who knew it was this easy to defeat the flu
| all along. Turns out you just have to pretend to distance
| and wear a mask occasionally.
|
| Flu shots be damned.
|
| The smugness of such stupidity..
| jrs235 wrote:
| R-factor.
|
| If 90%* wear masks and the R-factor of the "flu" is is low
| enough it "disappears". But if the R-factor for covid is high
| enough it still spreads even if 90%* wear masks (10% don't).
|
| It's mindboggling how simple simple thinking can evade
| people.
|
| *numbers made up for illustration purposes only
| [deleted]
| caturopath wrote:
| Or -- I bet a lot more likely -- the handwashing etc.
| prescriptions that turned out to be pretty meaningless for
| COVID but that are important to the transmission of flu and
| many other diseases.
|
| Obviously personal action is harder to reproduce than
| government-sponsored trucks, so it's less useful if it was a
| main cause.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| probably the school closings were the largest contributor
| caturopath wrote:
| Since this has varied so much by region, I wonder if there's
| any good evidence.
|
| This makes a lot of sense. Schools have been surprisingly
| rare causes of COVID outbreaks, but are constant epicenters
| for flu outbreaks.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| > Schools have been surprisingly rare causes of COVID
| outbreaks
|
| I can clearly remember that multiple countries closed
| schools within weeks of the first reopening because the
| virus was spreading there like wildfire, in the age group
| with the highest rate of asymptomatic(aka invisible until
| it's too late) cases.
| anoncake wrote:
| Aka the group that has to suffer the most from lockdowns
| while benefitting the least.
| caturopath wrote:
| The CDC reports at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-n
| cov/science/science-br... that "in-person learning in
| schools has not been associated with substantial
| community transmission"
|
| The low symptom rate corresponds to a low transmission
| rate. The worse your case of COVID, the more likely you
| will transmit it to others in the same situation. This is
| the obvious mechanism of the fact that kids, who very
| seldom have bad cases of COVID and so frequently do not
| show symptoms, are not usually major spreaders of the
| virus.
|
| This all is one of the really unusual things about COVID
| compared to other communicable diseases.
| taeric wrote:
| Odd that you don't mention closed schools. My model has those
| far higher in this than anything I personally do.
|
| That is, as a parent, I was far less prone to sickness before I
| had kids of school age. From all I have ever heard, I am far
| from unique in that.
| wozer wrote:
| They didn't do that in Germany, but the flu disappeared here,
| too.
| opencl wrote:
| In this 2018 paper[1] transmission from surfaces accounted for
| ~4% of flu infections. So it probably made very little impact.
|
| [1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6121424/
| yosito wrote:
| Thanks! This is good information. I would imagine that ~4%
| less flu infections at the start of a flu season would be
| enough to slow down the season a bit, in theory, but not to
| the point flu has been slowed down now.
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| Sanitation theater is helpful in the sense that it calms
| certain people's anxieties, much like a placebo pill does.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| 1. stay in your home 2. wear a mask 3. extra emphasis on washing
| your hands and not touching your face
|
| I'm only prepared to continue with #3 and I hope Covid will
| encourage more people to get annual flu shots. Beyond that, I'm
| rolling the dice.
| mnouquet wrote:
| 1. not doing that, 2. never done that, 3. don't care about
| personal hygiene that much
|
| I'm surprised I'm still alive...
| bluSCALE4 wrote:
| This is stupid. Both my wife and I got sick and luckily it wasn't
| Covid. When we were tested, that's all everyone cared about so
| I'm sure they didn't mark us as having the flu even though we
| obviously had something.
| s0rce wrote:
| Seems like they just need to show a % of positive influenza
| tests to control for a reduction in performing those tests.
| TrevorJ wrote:
| Family member had same experience. Classic flu symptoms. No
| breathing problems. Dr. Wrote down Covid symptoms in his notes
| which they did not have and had not complained of. They ordered
| a covid test, which was negative. I actually feel like they got
| WORSE care than they would have otherwise. The Dr. wasn't even
| interested in treating anything that wasn't covid, let alone
| diagnosing it.
| freyir wrote:
| Just because you weren't tested for the flu at your local
| doctor's office, that doesn't mean that the flu isn't
| systematically monitored or that infection rates haven't
| plummeted.
|
| The headline is hyperbolic (the article says it's dropped to
| "minuscule levels") but it's entirely possible to determine
| that by sampling a small portion of the population.
| postalrat wrote:
| https://syndromictrends.com/metric/panel/rp/percent_positivi...
|
| Unless I'm reading that chart wrong it seems like flu went away
| but viruses that cause cold like symptoms stuck around.
|
| If masks/etc was super effective wouldn't you expect those to go
| down with influenza?
| beowulfey wrote:
| I mean, if you look at May 2019 vs 2020 for the
| enterovirus/rhinoviruses on that chart, that's a drop from ~25%
| to ~3%; September went from 35% to 21%. So it's still a pretty
| solid decrease. I think it just wasn't nearly eradicated like
| influenza was because the prevalence is so high.
| giarc wrote:
| I'm not sure the source of that chart. The viruses contained in
| the Coronavirus category aren't even the SARS-CoV-2 that we
| call COVID. They list 4 strains, all of which are the regular
| circulating strains of coronavirus. I'd say this is not
| accurate at all.
| graeme wrote:
| They didn't vanish but it looks like multiple other viruses
| shrank.
| jvm_ wrote:
| 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 itself.
|
| Influenza is one of the most selfish viruses around, and nearly
| always infects alone. Others, such as adenoviruses, seem to be
| more up for a houseshare.
|
| If rhinovirus and Sars-CoV-2 were released at the same time,
| only rhinovirus is successful. If rhinovirus had a 24-hour head
| start then Sars-CoV-2 does not get a look in. And even when
| Sars-CoV-2 had 24-hours to get started, rhinovirus boots it
| out.
|
| "Sars-CoV-2 never takes off, it is heavily inhibited by
| rhinovirus," Dr Pablo Murcia told BBC News.
|
| He added: "This is absolutely exciting because if you have a
| high prevalence of rhinovirus, it could stop new Sars-CoV-2
| infections."
| Pyramus wrote:
| It's very much disputed how much 'viral interference' was or
| is an influence in the current pandemic, and this effect (to
| my knowledge) has been only studied in animal models and
| human tissue [1], paper from the article [2].
|
| Or to put it another way, the influenza season was already
| under way when SARS-Cov-2 hit in Feb 2020, but there is no
| indication the influenza virus slowed the SARS-Cov-2
| pandemic.
|
| The exciting thing about viral interference is that no
| genetic similarity between the viruses is needed, however,
| the effect is only temporary (days to weeks) and limited.
|
| Unfortunately viral interference is also being misused as an
| 'alternative explanation' by folks that do not want to see
| the evidence that non-pharmacological interventions (hygiene,
| social distancing, quarantine, masks, large gatherings etc.)
| are effective against a whole host of respiratory diseases.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_interference [2]
| https://academic.oup.com/jid/advance-
| article/doi/10.1093/inf...
| bsimpson wrote:
| Begs the obvious question: could you intentionally infect
| someone with a mild, greedy virus to displace a more
| dangerous one?
| Kneecaps07 wrote:
| I got a cold about two weeks ago and I'm only now almost
| recovered. I work at a hospital so got a COVID test to be safe,
| even though I'm fully vaccinated. They ran a respiratory panel
| as well. They called me with the results and I almost had to
| change my pants because they informed me I had "Coronavirus
| OC43.... which is essentially the common cold".
| defaultname wrote:
| Each virus can only interact with certain cells of your body.
| COVID and influenza interact with lower respiratory cells. You
| have to inhale a viral load to be infected, or at least this is
| the consensus belief right now (and is contrary to all of the
| concern about fomites early on).
|
| Many cold-like viruses infect mucous membranes (you have a
| number over your body). A glancing touch is enough to be
| infected.
| clon wrote:
| Do you have a reference for this? My SO still insists on
| washing our shopping, which, according to your information is
| totally unnecessary.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > If masks/etc was super effective wouldn't you expect those to
| go down with influenza?
|
| Viruses are not identical.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinovirus
|
| > They are lytic in nature and are among the smallest viruses,
| with diameters of about 30 nanometers. By comparison, other
| viruses, such as smallpox and vaccinia, are around ten times
| larger at about 300 nanometers, while flu viruses are around
| 80-120 nm.
|
| Different virus sizes, different mask effectiveness.
|
| Anecdotally, my kids are in middle school, and every winter we
| get several colds. None this year.
| velosol wrote:
| >Different virus sizes, different mask effectiveness.
|
| Not necessarily - when speaking and otherwise spreading
| aerosols they start out much larger than any virus particles
| contained within them and quickly dry out and shrink if in
| air (i.e. not caught in a mask) [1, 1um - 500um, between
| Table I & Fig 11].
|
| If they were on their own, the small 'nanoparticle' regime
| (1-100nm) shows fairly good filtration in a variety of media
| [1st image in 3] thanks at least in part to the diffusion of
| particles through filter media. It's not the same by size by
| any means (with smaller often being the most passed particle
| size) but it varies with filter construction and treatment
| [3].
|
| [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8061903/
| [2]: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00022470.198
| 0.10... [3]:
| https://academic.oup.com/annweh/article/56/5/568/159920
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The larger point: You should not "expect" two different
| classes of viruses to act the same given a specific
| mitigation, as there can be substantial differences between
| them.
| panarky wrote:
| Every community has a baseline mortality rate during "normal"
| times. During abnormal times like pandemic, famine and war, more
| people die than usual, but often the cause isn't known.
|
| If you subtract baseline mortality from actual mortality to get
| excess mortality, that's often a better estimate of the
| casualties from pandemic, famine and war than the death
| certificates for every person who died.
|
| Excess mortality in most countries shows that Covid deaths are
| significantly under-reported.
|
| And if there are fewer deaths from flu, and fewer from suicide
| [1], then excess mortality itself is under-reported and Covid
| killed even more than we thought.
|
| [1] https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/04/08/defying-
| expectations-...
| asiachick wrote:
| There would be fewer traffic accidents as well right. No idea
| if the balance of consequences are a net plus or a net minus.
|
| In any case there were a couple peaks in the USA where deaths
| from all causes were 25% higher than average.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-raw-deat...
| CrazyPyroLinux wrote:
| Cleaned-up OCR'd data from
| https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/leading-causes-of-death.htm in
| TSV format:
|
| Year/Cause of death 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Total deaths
| 2712630 2744248 2813503 2839205 2854838 3358814 Heart disease
| 633842 635260 647457 655381 659041 690882 Cancer 595930 598038
| 599108 599274 599601 598932 COVID-19 345323 Unintentional
| injuries 146571 161374 169936 167127 173040 192176 Stroke
| 140323 142142 146383 147810 150005 159050 Chronic lower
| respiratory diseases 155041 154596 160201 159486 156979 151637
| Alzheimer disease 110561 116103 121404 122019 121499 133382
| Diabetes 79535 80058 83564 84946 87647 101106 Influenza and
| pneumonia 57062 51537 55672 59120 49783 53495 Kidney disease
| 49959 50046 50633 51386 51565 52260 Suicide 44193 44965 47173
| 48344 47511 44834
| CrazyPyroLinux wrote:
| Sorry for the awful formatting. Odd things in the prelim 2020
| data that surprised me: All leading causes of death were
| statistically unchanged; COVID just shoehorned itself into
| the #3 spot below heart disease and cancer, above
| unintentional injuries. I was expecting a huge drop in the
| "Influenza and pneumonia" category, but there was not. I was
| also expecting a noticeable increase in the suicide category,
| but there was not.
| rajin444 wrote:
| > And if there are fewer deaths from flu, and fewer from
| suicide [1], then excess mortality itself is under-reported and
| Covid killed even more than we thought.
|
| The majority of covid deaths are those that on average had very
| few months left to live. There is a likely a high chance these
| people were going to die to the next "flu" that came around.
|
| How do you account for this? It seems like adding flu deaths on
| top of covid is incorrect - both would only have a subset of
| people that are going to die from it, and while covid's is
| probably more than the flu (depending on the flu strain - we've
| had some pretty bad flu years), since they both share the same
| pool I don't think you can add flu deaths in.
|
| On top of that, we had a relatively light flu season preceding
| covid. This would also need to somehow be accounted for, but
| I'm not sure how. There was likely a "dry tinder" effect.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| If they only had a few months left to live, we should see a
| spike in the opposite direction for excess mortality. You can
| monitor this yourself for some countries here:
| https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/
| DanBC wrote:
| > The majority of covid deaths are those that on average had
| very few months left to live.
|
| In England we know covid is killing people on average at
| least 10 years early.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| 10 years earlier from when they would have died from the
| flu? Or is a flu death also some # of years earlier than
| {median death age}?
| widget1321 wrote:
| 10 years earlier than they would have been expected to
| die without catching COVID. From anything, not just the
| flu. All-cause mortality includes flu deaths, yes, if
| that's what you're asking?
| grumpyautist wrote:
| That article is drawing conclusions based on an incomplete data
| set. Suicide with covid is a covid death anyway.
| spinny wrote:
| nope, having covid when getting run over by a bus counts as a
| covid death in many places
| lame-robot-hoax wrote:
| Source?
| simion314 wrote:
| How many places? And how many places are trying to hide the
| real numbers(India the most recent one)
| Flatcircle wrote:
| I keep wondering how Lice will be able to hang around much after
| last year's social distancing, especially among children.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| Are... are those still a thing in the first world?
| gibspaulding wrote:
| I read somewhere (I think Bill Bryson's "At Home") that they
| were almost wiped out at one point in the 20th century, but
| have recently started making a comeback which seems to
| correlate with the rise of energy saving low temp wash cycles
| that aren't as effective at killing them.
| james_pm wrote:
| Possible the higher instances are related to the fact that
| schools no longer do routine screening for lice. No more
| school nurse and no more chopsticks checks monthly means
| that they have a chance to spread amongst the kids before
| anyone notices.
| aqzman wrote:
| Off topic, but Bill Bryson is such a fantastic author.
| tpmx wrote:
| Looking at the Google Trends graph I posted in the sibling
| comment - that would make so much sense.
| tpmx wrote:
| Yes.
|
| US: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&
| q=l...
|
| Interesting to see the graph starting to drop dramatically in
| early 2020 after a decade of growth/high numbers.
| detaro wrote:
| yes
| meheleventyone wrote:
| Rampant amongst young kids in particular. Worms as well.
| james_pm wrote:
| Indeed they are. We battled the lice on multiple occasions
| with our two girls (in Canada). Pre-COVID, there was nothing
| we wanted to see less than a letter from the daycare or
| school about a lice case in the room. Lice are a pain in the
| butt.
| kat wrote:
| I'm going to guess most people here had short hair while in
| elementary school...you're all so lucky!
|
| I've always had clean thick long blonde hair, which happens
| to be lice's favourite hair type. Every time there was a lice
| outbreak in school, I got it. Its very much a thing in Canada
| still.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| I grew up in a rural area in a second-world country, during
| the 90ies when the economy went from shitty to complete
| shit, and many people had to subsist on grazing, so to
| speak: I helped to plant (and then gather) potatoes,
| tomatoes and other vegetables in our backyard. But even
| then, lices were mostly something out of WW2-era stories,
| or something you'd get if you hanged out with local
| "wandering folk", I guess; I don't remember any lice cases
| in my school although we did have our hair checked in the
| elementary.
|
| Then things generally improved and life is now much better;
| so what about the lices? According to the 2019 statistics,
| there were 200 cases of headlice per 100'000 children that
| year. Quite a number, but not a huge one, really.
|
| So that's why I asked--if in a poor second-world country
| lices were almost a non-issue, then surely that means the
| rich first-world countries have managed to completely get
| rid off the lice, and much earlier, too? Right?
| [deleted]
| Ma8ee wrote:
| There are sporadic outbreaks of head lice in my children's
| preschool. It doesn't seems to have change much since I was
| in that age myself soon fifty years ago.
| steverb wrote:
| I wonder if bed bug infestations also declined with less
| travel.
| asdff wrote:
| The seedy airbnbs by the drinking areas have been making
| money hand over fist this pandemic among the "refuse to
| subscribe to reality" crowd, which has been empowered over
| the last few years.
| [deleted]
| Nasrudith wrote:
| I thought lice were found in the environment and not human
| reservoirs only. Obviously sterilizing the Earth coukd
| technically solve it but going full War of the Worlds Martian
| would be a terrible idea.
| [deleted]
| Majromax wrote:
| 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 people become
| reluctant to socialize because of covid (whether or not there be
| legal restrictions), they will also not spread the flu.
|
| As a broad conclusion, if public health measures reduce the
| effective reproduction number of Covid to about 1 (stabilizing
| exponential growth), they will also reduce the effective
| reproduction number of the flu to something substantially below
| 1. Since the flu would have also had a low baseline prevalence in
| the summer of 2020, it is no wonder that we failed to see a flu
| season.
|
| There's really no need for conspiracy theorizing.
| haecceity wrote:
| Will the flu come back after covid ends? If covid ends?
| ddingus wrote:
| I think that depends a lot on how people live.
| havewetsalt wrote:
| It's conspiracy theory by definition if it falls outside the
| official narrative. So even science can be a conspiracy theory.
|
| In fact, real science has a tendency to be viewed (by non-
| scientists, it should go without saying) as conspiracy theory
| insofar as it challenges the official narrative, and invokes
| complicated explanations, rather than a nice simple answer.
| [deleted]
| realreality wrote:
| You need a conspiracy for it to be a conspiracy theory.
| Without that, it's just a theory (or, more likely, a
| hypothesis).
| havewetsalt wrote:
| No, the modern sense is literally just a euphemism for
| dissent.
|
| (of course the modern sense of literal is literally
| figurative.)
| Majromax wrote:
| No, a conspiracy theory "by definition" requires
| collaboration between several human agents.
|
| In this overall thread, the idea that the "disappearance" of
| flu is driven by political desire to label all respiratory
| illnesses as covid cases would be an example of a conspiracy
| theory.
|
| Another commenter brings up the idea of 'viral interference.'
| This is not an example of a conspiracy theory, but I do not
| give the idea great credence on Occam's Razor grounds.
| havewetsalt wrote:
| No, that's just your definition.
|
| While I may personally agree the viral interference comment
| is not (in my definition) a conspiracy theory, it is
| regarded as a conspiracy theory in many (again, non-
| scientific) contexts.
|
| The conspiracy is not the collaboration, it is the belief.
| didericis wrote:
| > the idea that the "disappearance" of flu is driven by
| political desire to label all respiratory illnesses as
| covid cases would be an example of a conspiracy theory.
|
| You'd also have to claim that mislabelling was done
| deliberately for it to be conspiratorial.
|
| I don't think politically motivated distortions of
| perception are conspiratorial if those who are prone to
| mislabel things due to their belief system do so without
| realizing.
|
| Not saying that's an applicable explanation for the
| disappearance of flu, as it seems way too universal, just
| going further into semantics.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| How can you explain people getting covid but not the flu when
| nothing changed when places started opening up?
|
| It sounds more like poor data reporting more than anything else
| and I will take that to my grave.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The CDC doesn't accurately measure flu deaths. It's largely
| done by assessing death certificate data rather than
| positively identifying a flu infection. Deaths by pneumonia
| during the designated flu season months are counted in the
| tally of annual flu deaths. It is very likely that a portion
| of deaths attributed to COV19 over the winter were in fact
| from flu.
| Majromax wrote:
| > How can you explain people getting covid but not the flu
| when nothing changed when places started opening up?
|
| Covid starts from a higher baseline level of cases, and it
| has a higher transmission rate. When societies "open up"
| (resume social contacts; it's more than just government
| lockdowns), then we'd expect to see covid cases climb before
| flu cases. In fact, seeing the opposite would be very
| surprising.
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| > ...and I will take that to my grave
|
| "When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind. What Do You Do,
| Sir?"
| audessuscest wrote:
| https://twitter.com/ianmSC/status/1387864442386325504
| tryonenow wrote:
| >In the meantime, public health measures like masking and
| distancing will work against both viruses
|
| That's not necessarily true. COVID appears to be aerosolized,
| whereas typical flu is not. That means that masks will work to
| catch viral flu particles in ejected fluids (talking, coughing,
| sneezing, etc), but the same cannot be assumed for COVID, given
| that viral particles are orders of magnitude smaller than pores
| in cloth and surgical masks. And this assertion is supported by
| at least two studies (one Danish I believe) which showed
| negligible effect of mask wearing on COVID spread.
| fny wrote:
| To quell discussions of no/low testing.
|
| Looking at two weeks:
|
| - Week of December 5, 2020: 40/22,474 flu tests were positive
|
| - Week of December 7, 2019: 631/1,508 flu tests were positive
|
| Cumulative #s:
|
| - Cumulative through Week 14 2021: 1,739/891,717
|
| - Cumulative through Week 14 2019: 37,155/69,291
|
| So we've been testing wayyy more often with wayyy fewer
| positives.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/pastreports.htm
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| Or....(and without any conspiracy theories - never mind MOST
| conspiracy theories of the last 30 years have entirely become
| true - conspiracy TRUTHS).
|
| Everything that was flu was labeled as COVID since doctors,
| hospitals and medical professions were PAID a bounty on COVID.
|
| Multiple this by PCR testing being 99% fraudulent due to high
| cycle counts which enable cold viruses and even flu viruses to
| to test positive because you've reached the "noise floor" of
| the test at 10-15 cycles (most testing was done with 30-40
| cycles). This helped "fulfill" the bounties and take all the
| attention away from conventional diseases both infective and
| others like heart disease, cancer, etc. (which got counted as
| COVID as well, just like traffic accidents and other
| definitely-not-COVID deaths that occurred).
|
| The same bounty system shut down the entire surveillance system
| for flu as well as because non-essential workers included
| anything not COVID related or providing shallowly defined
| "essential" services.
| sebmellen wrote:
| I'm 100% sure that "MOST" conspiracy theories of the last 30
| years have not been proven true.
| [deleted]
| fullshark wrote:
| > This should not come as a surprise, and it was largely
| predictable from the outset.
|
| That explains all these news stories telling me what to expect:
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/experts-warn-twindemic-...
|
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/09/19/covid-...
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-we-can-avoid-...
|
| etc:
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=twindemic&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:9...
| [deleted]
| gregschlom wrote:
| Counter point: https://xkcd.com/2287/, from March 2020
| bradford wrote:
| We were warned of bad outcomes if precautions weren't taken.
| Precautions were taken, and the worst outcomes were avoided.
| This doesn't invalidate the prior warning.
|
| I don't want to assume bad intentions on your part but I'm
| not really sure what you want us to conclude from these
| posts... elaborate?
| fullshark wrote:
| That it wasn't predictable or obvious flu cases would go to
| near zero. These news stories are not about how if we do X
| then flu cases will go to near zero, and most operate under
| the assumption flu season is coming and will likely be a
| "twindemic" that need to be mitigated/lessened. It didn't
| come and now we are pretending it was clear it was never
| coming.
|
| Just tired of people using selective memories to pretend
| that the last year wasn't chaotic and full of many wrong
| predictions, from experts and novices alike. Some humility
| would be appreciated.
| jjav wrote:
| > That it wasn't predictable or obvious flu cases would
| go to near zero.
|
| How could it not be predictable? I get the cold/flu when
| I or someone in the family is exposed to someone sick and
| it gets passed on.
|
| If we're all staying in the house and not going anywhere
| for a year, by what mechanism could we possibly get sick?
| Seemed predictable to me.
|
| In any case, it's been so awesome to not be sick in over
| a year. With elementary school kid, it used to be I was
| sick every few weeks all year long. Not looking forward
| to going back to that kind of normal.
| fullshark wrote:
| And yet I really don't remember any discussion at all
| about how flu season was going to be nonexistent this
| winter in the media. No discussion about how if we
| socially distance flu deaths would drop almost 97% (22000
| -> 600).
|
| I guess no one decided to write a news story about it
| cause it was so predictable, dog bites man and all.
| [deleted]
| robertlagrant wrote:
| You're lumping the poster in with all the experts and
| novices. They're one person, saying one thing. You need a
| link to _them_ saying the opposite to substantiate your
| criticism of their statement.
| AndrewUnmuted wrote:
| Why would the conclusions drawn from the post indicate bad
| intentions?
|
| The warnings you're referring to were predicated on a
| pretty generic and nondescript need to get people
| vaccinated. This was a widespread messaging campaign in the
| media, heavy on the threats but not specificity.
|
| Instead of what was threatened all summer, what actually
| happened was that flu disappeared AND people were being
| chastised for poor compliance with local ordinances and
| vaccination.
| hanselot wrote:
| Shills drawing in from every side. ITT watch someone post
| examples of contrary information presented as fact by the
| press, to be slandered as spreading misinformation. How much
| do they pay the child commenters, or do they really do it
| because they drink the kool-aid?
| jb775 wrote:
| Where's all the people that were saying Covid is a completely
| separate thing from the flu?...and every "Covid Death" was a
| separate death on top of the normal flu death rate?
|
| Occam's Razor: Covid isn't a "pandemic", it's a strong flu
| ykl wrote:
| Scientists have sequenced the RNA for both covid and
| influenza, we know for a fact that they are completely
| different species of viruses.
| danudey wrote:
| Influenza is a specific thing. I'm not sure why you're
| trying to argue that COVID-19 is influenza when that's
| observably factually incorrect. Perhaps you're not aware
| that "the flu" is a specific thing and not just a way
| people say "people who get sick all at once from a thing"?
| jsolson wrote:
| It's not an influenza virus.
|
| That said, even if it was, a "very strong flu" with global
| transmission and impact _is_ a pandemic -- see the 1918 Flu
| Pandemic.
|
| The death rate in 2020 in the US also surpassed that during
| the 1918 pandemic.
|
| What I think we've learned is that the same measures used
| to slow the spread of COVID-19 are staggeringly effective
| against the flu, and that we now know how to prepare for
| the next particularly aggressive influenza variant.
| topher_t wrote:
| Covid is a completely separate thing from the flu, and this
| study shows that the excess death rate is not in fact on
| top of the normal flu, but that because of covid related
| precautions there were almost no flu deaths. So covid
| killed alot more people than the excess death rate would
| indicate.
| brazzy wrote:
| Covid is caused by a coronavirus, not an influenza virus.
| They have similar transmission methods and symptoms, but
| they are still different things. Like cats and dogs are
| both of similar size, both carnivores, both kept as pets
| and both can bite you, but they are still different kinds
| of animals.
|
| And _of-fucking-course_ it 's a pandemic. What do you think
| that word means?
| nodamage wrote:
| 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
| kube-system wrote:
| I haven't seen this before, thanks for sharing. Do you
| know the original source?
| nodamage wrote:
| It was generated from the CDC data available here:
| https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/mortality.html
| greycol wrote:
| If we're using the WHO definition of a pandemic it's a
| pandemic.
|
| If we're using the dictionary definition of a pandemic "(of
| a disease) prevalent over a whole country or the world."
| it's a pandemic.
|
| If we're using the colloquial definition of a pandemic "a
| disease that spreads around the world killing lots of
| people" it's a pandemic.
|
| If you want you can consider seasonal flu on the list of
| pandemics, fine, but you're simply wrong to consider covid
| not a pandemic and if you are trying to downplay how deadly
| covid is I'd say you're behaving in an ethically wrong
| manner too.
| dijit wrote:
| Covid transmits the same way as flu but is more infectious.
|
| Measures against Covid work against flu.
|
| It's nice to know that our flu deaths are declining. But
| our Covid deaths are many times more.
| achenatx wrote:
| covid might not be more infectious, it might just be less
| people have any existing partial resistance to sars-
| cov-2. Each year the flu mutates but it still has overlap
| with prior variants.
|
| As sars-cov-2 mutates seasonal covid might end up less
| bad than the seasonal flu. Though there is no way to
| tell.
| jlund-molfese wrote:
| It's almost universally accepted that covid-19 is separate
| from, and significantly more destructive than seasonal
| influenza viruses.
|
| I don't think mainstream virologists and epidemiologists
| have changed their minds after the past year.
| jonas21 wrote:
| For the reasons listed above, there were 3 potential
| outcomes, depending on the success of the public health
| measures to contain the spread of COVID:
|
| 1. A high number of COVID cases and a high number of flu
| cases.
|
| 2. A high number of COVID cases but low number of flu cases.
|
| 3. A low number of COVID cases and a low number of flu cases.
|
| If flu and COVID were independent, there would be a fourth
| potential outcome (high flu cases and low COVID cases). The
| thing that Majromax is saying was largely predictable is that
| this fourth outcome was unlikely.
|
| The thing that the news articles are warning about is outcome
| #1 which, if it had transpired, probably would have been
| quite bad. Note that the experts in the articles are warning
| about something that could happen, not saying that it will
| definitely happen. And the reason it didn't happen is at
| least in part due to the warnings that were issued.
| fallingfrog wrote:
| I actually told people at the outset of the covid lockdowns,
| "at least we won't have a flu season this year." Then later on
| I saw people online floating this as some kind of conspiracy
| and I thought, "wait, this wasn't obvious to everyone?"
| psychlops wrote:
| Covid was this years flu season.
| fallingfrog wrote:
| That is not correct: they are two different viruses.
|
| Even if you're making a loose analogy that's still a poor
| comparison.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Non virologist naive question, if we apply all these measures
| targeting SARS-COV2 and it also creates a massive negative
| pressure on flu viruses, is there a risk that this applies an
| adaptive pressure to select for a future uber infectious new
| flu strain?
| Majromax wrote:
| I don't see any reason to expect it would. Summer months, for
| example, already apply a strong negative pressure on the flu
| virus (that is, we have a _flu season_ ), yet we have not
| seen a year-round flu.
|
| Diseases always face selection pressure to spread more easily
| and rapidly. When that selection pressure is caused by broad
| factors like "people aren't congregating together," it's hard
| to imagine how any simple evolution could overcome that
| barrier.
|
| Covid itself is instructive here. Some of the variants of
| concern _are_ more transmissible than the originally-
| distributed variant as of March of last year, but those
| mutations don 't uniquely overcome masks or social
| distancing. They would have always result in a more
| transmissible virus (because SARS-CoV-2 appears to be a
| zoonotic virus not originally perfectly-adapted to humans),
| and we are seeing them now because each infected person is a
| new roll of the mutation dice.
|
| Applying that lesson to the flu, the less prevalent the virus
| the less likely we are to see variations, not more. Alas, for
| influenza itself we always have the asterisk that we
| regularly see new variations cross to humans from animal
| reservoirs, so we're unlikely to eliminate it through only
| (nonpharmaceutical) human-health measures. (It'd be nice to
| get a universal flu vaccine, though.)
| daanlo wrote:
| My layman understanding is that it doesn't work that way.
| Less spread = less chance of mutation = less chance of uber
| infectious new flu strain.
| collyw wrote:
| It's potentially the opposite. Say you have a population of
| 1000. If one person infects ten others. Then its going to
| be 3 generations before 1000 are infected and full immunity
| is reached.
|
| We go for a suppression strategy instead.If 1 person
| infects 1 other person (as we seem to be trying to achieve
| with corna) it is going to take 1000 generations before
| full immunity is achieved. There is going to be far more
| chance of mutations in 1000 generations of viral
| replication than in 3 generations.
| timr wrote:
| > 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 in R0 is crude thinking. It's unlikely to be
| anything of the sort.
|
| First, R0 is not a fixed constant. It varies by context and
| location, and we've seen influenza decline _everywhere_.
|
| Second, R0 is an _estimated value_. There are big error bars on
| all of these estimates -- the overlap is far greater than the
| 0.5 you 're using to claim causality.
|
| Third, rhinovirus _has not gone away_ (estimated R0 < 2). Nor
| has adenovirus (estimated R0 ~2.3) [1,2]
|
| There's something far more interesting going on here, it _is_
| surprising, and it isn 't a "conspiracy theory" to talk about
| it. It's science.
|
| (FWIW, my current favored hypothesis is that the closure of
| schools, and possibly travel, significantly affected the spread
| of flu. Unlike Covid, kids _are_ a significant vector of spread
| for influenza. It 's one of those little facts about Covid that
| is...politically incorrect...to acknowledge right now. But I am
| speculating, and there are problems with this theory as well.)
|
| [1]
| https://syndromictrends.com/metric/panel/rp/percent_positivi...
|
| [2]
| https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.04.20020404v...
| [deleted]
| abunuwas wrote:
| This makes sense. I've always caught a flu or cold in the
| tube or in the office, usually from an infected parent. Last
| year many parents were enjoying a flu-less life while the
| schools were closed, only to catch it again a week after
| opening the schools again. I don't have kids, so last year,
| for the first time in my life, I didn't spend a single day
| sick.
| mnouquet wrote:
| Which doesn't mean it's necessarily a good thing, as all
| these bugs will come back with a vengeance against immune
| systems.
| math0ne wrote:
| Where I live in Canada schools never really closed and we are
| seeing the same thing.
| jacobolus wrote:
| > _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. In some
| places parents deliberately avoided testing their kids for
| fear positive tests would interfere with their in-person
| schooling or extracurricular activities.
|
| Repeated claims that kids don't spread Covid were politically
| motivated and based largely on junk science.
|
| Admittedly doing good studies was extremely difficult in
| places like the USA where spread was wildly out of control
| and contact tracing was completely overwhelmed.
| mmmrtl wrote:
| Possible explanations include:
|
| - More asymptomatic transmission of rhinovirus/enterovirus
| and adenoviruses than influenza. People often don't notice
| these illnesses, so wouldn't assume it is COVID and
| quarantine like they would for influenza.
|
| - More fomite spread than influenza. They may be more stable
| on surfaces or in food
| timr wrote:
| These are reasonable theories as well. Though the second
| one would really have to be "SARS-CoV2 has more fomite
| spread than flu" to explain the observations.
|
| In general though, any sort of explanation that focuses on
| differences in transmission is more plausible than hand-
| wavy theories involving R0 and masks. People just
| desperately want to find evidence that the stuff we did
| this year made a huge difference.
| thelean12 wrote:
| > People just desperately want to find evidence that the
| stuff we did this year made a huge difference.
|
| I don't think that's true at all. People have been
| receptive to the increased evidence that transmission on
| surfaces is pretty unlikely, for example, despite all the
| efforts we've put into sanitizing surfaces.
|
| I think most people can appreciate that all the shit we
| threw at the wall throughout the pandemic eventually
| comes down to how much effort it is vs how much benefit
| we get from it. And our understanding of each measure has
| changed over time. We now know, generally:
|
| Masks indoors are low-effort, medium reward. Masks
| outdoors are low-effort, low reward.
|
| Cleaning surfaces is medium-effort, low reward.
|
| Staying home is (economically, societally) high-effort,
| high reward.
| timr wrote:
| To be clear: I'm not making a specific argument about
| masks vs. sanitizing vs. whatever here.
|
| I'm just saying: responses like the OP immediately _leap
| to the conclusion_ that influenza went away because of
| all the stuff we did. It 's an error in logic, driven by
| the emotional desire to believe that the stuff we did
| must have had a serious impact, and that anything else is
| not worth serious discussion.
|
| That's ideology, not science.
| thelean12 wrote:
| I agree that leaping to conclusions isn't science. It
| doesn't get past the hypothesis stage and needs proper
| study.
|
| That said, if the massive reduction in flu cases _isn 't_
| a result of some or all of our Covid efforts, it'd be a
| hell of a coincidence.
| timr wrote:
| > That said, if the massive reduction in flu cases isn't
| a result of some or all of our Covid efforts, it'd be a
| hell of a coincidence.
|
| Mmmm...I wouldn't go that far. Like I said, my current
| preferred theory involves schools, but other plausible
| theories involve things like mutual inhibition: infection
| with one virus somehow interferes with infection by the
| other.
|
| We have some evidence of this happening in the past.
| Strains of influenza have abruptly vanished due to this
| phenomena.
|
| Certainly, I'd agree that this is _interesting_ (which is
| pretty much where I end up on this, vs. the OP, who
| thinks the matter is settled.)
| Sakos wrote:
| > I'm just saying: responses like the OP immediately leap
| to the conclusion that influenza went away because of all
| the stuff we did. It's an error in logic, driven by the
| emotional desire to believe that the stuff we did must
| have had a serious impact, and that anything else is not
| worth serious discussion.
|
| I feel like you're coming down too hard on OP. He makes a
| valid argument.
|
| > immediately leap to the conclusion that influenza went
| away because of all the stuff we did
|
| It's not an error in logic. It's a reasonable conclusion
| to draw based on what we've seen and the links he
| provided. Whether it's true or not, that's debatable and
| probably nobody here on HN is going to figure that out
| definitively.
|
| I'm _really_ not sure why you 're so argumentative
| without actually providing any substantial arguments
| against OP. It feels more like you're the one arguing
| from an ideological basis.
| [deleted]
| joshgel wrote:
| 2 was published in Feb 2020, so not sure how helpful that
| is...
|
| 1 is not normalized data. It does not account for testing
| frequency. These percentages are of tests using BioFire. My
| hospital, for example, does not use BioFire to test for SARS-
| CoV-2 and so we end up running BioFire much, much less
| frequently than during a normal year.
|
| Anecdotally non-COVID respiratory infections in hospitalized
| patients have decreased dramatically. Working on trying to
| demonstrate this with data.
| timr wrote:
| > 2 was published in Feb 2020, so not sure how helpful that
| is...
|
| It's a meta-analysis of many other papers. The estimates
| for the other ILIs have not changed significantly in 2020.
| Again, this is nitpicking that misses the forest for the
| trees: the differences in estimated R0 between these
| viruses is not so precise as to be useful for claiming the
| effectiveness of something like "masks and distancing".
|
| > 1 is not normalized data. It does not account for testing
| frequency
|
| This is incorrect. The data is normalized across all
| samples. Your hospital's non-participation may change the
| _coverage of the sample_ , but that doesn't really matter
| when it's just showing you that _rhinovirus hasn 't gone
| away_.
| joshgel wrote:
| In the paper associated with 1 it says:
|
| The FilmArray RP test utilization rate (TUR) metric is
| defined as the non-normalized number of RP patient test
| results generated each week across the Trend sites
| (computed as a centered 3-week moving average). To
| calculate the pathogen detection rate (as displayed in
| Figure 2 [second data view] and on the Trend website), we
| compute the rate for each organism at each institution as
| a centered 3-week moving average. To adjust for the
| capacity differences between sites, a national aggregate
| is calculated as the unweighted average of individual
| site rates. Only data from sites contributing more than
| 30 tests per week is included to avoid noise from small
| numbers of tests. Because the calculation of pathogen
| detection rate includes results from patients with
| multiple detections, the detection rate for all organisms
| can, in theory, add up to greater than one. In practice,
| this does not occur.
|
| These are rates. This does not account for testing
| frequency. If they only tested 1 person in the United
| States tomorrow, and they had rhino/entero, the graph
| would show 100% (obviously it wouldn't and they won't
| only test 1 person). That means that if testing
| decreased, because for example there were less patients
| with symptomatic viral infections, but the % positive
| stayed the same, the chart would not appear to change,
| even though there were fewer cases...
|
| paper: https://publichealth.jmir.org/2018/3/e59/
| timr wrote:
| The TUR is not the metric plotted on the website. Read
| the very next sentence in the section you're quoting:
|
| > To calculate the pathogen detection rate (as displayed
| in Figure 2 [second data view] and on the Trend website),
| we compute the rate for each organism at each institution
| as a centered 3-week moving average. To adjust for the
| capacity differences between sites, a national aggregate
| is calculated as the unweighted average of individual
| site rates. Only data from sites contributing more than
| 30 tests per week is included to avoid noise from small
| numbers of tests. Because the calculation of pathogen
| detection rate includes results from patients with
| multiple detections, the detection rate for all organisms
| can, in theory, add up to greater than one. In practice,
| this does not occur.
|
| The TUR is the the raw number of hits across all sites.
| They normalize this, which is why they talk about it
| possibly exceeding 1.0. It's why the Y-axis of the plot
| is labeled in percentages. The height of the bars is a
| moving average of detection rates across their network.
|
| Regardless, this is still nitpicking. The point was that
| these other pathogens have not gone away. They have not.
| Even if you were right, it wouldn't change the argument.
| Majromax wrote:
| > 2 was published in Feb 2020, so not sure how helpful that
| is...
|
| When [2] speaks about SARS-CoV, it's referring to the
| earlier SARS-1, not SARS-2-aka-covid-19.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Having school age kids means constant illness at home. Not
| usually severe, but annoying.
|
| Was one nice perk having kids at home. 9 months of no
| illness.
|
| 6 weeks after going back family had Covid. No it's back in
| the routine of mild illness at least monthly.
| newacct583 wrote:
| For clarity: are you genuinely claiming that you believe
| school closures prevent influenza transmission but that you
| think other related mitigation strategies like mask-wearing,
| restaurant closures, work-from-home, etc... _don 't_?
|
| That seems a little denialist, honestly.
| [deleted]
| Majromax wrote:
| > and the small difference in R0 is crude thinking.
|
| Given the reproduction number appears as the base of an
| exponent, I would not consider the difference "small."
|
| If influenza has a typical R0 of about 2, reducing contacts
| by 50% would make its growth non-exponential. If covid has a
| typical R0 of about 2.5, doing the same would require a
| _further_ 20% reduction of contacts, to 40% of baseline
| rather than 50%. Since population behaviour and legal
| restrictions have diminishing returns (eliminating casual
| contacts first at lower cost, then progressively higher-cost
| and more essential contacts), this could easily correspond to
| a large difference in effected (necessary) policy.
|
| > Second, R0 is an estimated value. There are big error bars
| on all of these estimates -- the overlap is far greater than
| the 0.5 you're using to claim causality.
|
| I have seen no credible evidence that typical (non-pandemic)
| influenza has an R0 greater than that of SARS-CoV-2. If you
| have a citation handy to the contrary, I'd be interested in
| seeing it. In the meantime, I tried to be generous in my
| estimation of influenza's R0; even your reference [2] places
| its central estimate at 1.68.
|
| > Third, rhinovirus has not gone away (estimated R0 < 2). Nor
| has adenovirus (estimated R0 ~2.3) [1,2]
|
| Rhinovirus and adenovirus both have mean-estimate R0 greater
| than that of influenza in your reference [2], so if policy is
| going to eliminate any of these disease from general
| circulation then influenza would be the first.
|
| Furthermore, some analysis does show limited evidence of a
| reduction of rhinovirus cases
| (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03519-3). A
| confounding factor here, however, is that we don't really
| have comprehensive like-against-like monitoring for
| rhinovirus in the way developed nations monitor for
| influenza. Adenoviruses as a broad category are also not
| limited to respiratory transmission, so air-focused
| restrictions would have less effect on these other routes.
|
| Finally, I reiterate that flu has a pronounced seasonal
| variation, whereas rhinovirus is somewhat less variable. A
| set of social responses only needs to prevent the flu season
| from starting to make it "disappear."
| samatman wrote:
| Small but important correction: nothing can make
| epidemiological spread non-exponential. Driving base
| reproduction below one additional infection per infected
| patient means the exponent is less than one, so the
| incidence of the disease rapidly decreases. This decrease
| is _also exponential_ by definition: infection is simply an
| exponential process, and an exponential equation doesn 't
| stop being what it is when the exponent is less than one.
|
| The steady state is exactly 1, which is like balancing a
| pencil on its point.
|
| It's plausible that two things happened here: the various
| local restrictions reduced the R0 of flu below 1, and the
| border closures kept mutations from traveling: and
| influenza is notoriously mutation-prone.
|
| These can combine to practically extirpate influenza.
| Unfortunately, the effect is temporary, and the next flu
| season is likely to be a real doozy.
|
| Which will be "fun" because our societies now have a
| hyperactive immune system, and there will be considerable
| political pressure to "do something" about the next flu
| wave. This must be resisted but I'm not optimistic.
| toss1 wrote:
| >> there will be considerable political pressure to "do
| something" about the next flu wave. This must be resisted
|
| Why on earth does it make sense to resist sensible public
| health measures to reduce the influenza to R0<1?
|
| The measures would not need to be nearly as drastic as
| those for COVID ("normal" R0 of 2 vs 2.5+), so more
| handwashing (good to minimize a broad spectrum of
| pathogens), masks (already culturally ordinary in many
| countries), and especially better indoor ventilation
| systems would be a long-term benefit to everyone.
|
| I'm mostly hoping that the success of better sequencing,
| mRNA vaccine technology, and the rapid development
| deployed for CV-19 will also be applicable to influenza
| and help minimize or practically eliminate it.
|
| Are you assuming other measures?
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Politicians have shown themselves throughout this
| pandemic to be opportunistic authoritarians who obviously
| don't believe in their mandates since they break them
| themselves so frequently. There's no reason to expect
| that these sociopaths won't jump at the opportunity to
| drink more from the fountain of power again given the
| chance. Since they've gotten away with so much this time,
| they might even be tempted to go even further next time.
| toss1 wrote:
| Are you serious?
|
| If anything, politicians have vastly under-managed the
| situation, timidly afraid of offending constituents'
| offense at any inconvenience, and only partially at best
| following sound science.
|
| In states that did issue orders for masks and stay-at-
| home, the orders were weak, late, and lifted early,
| resulting in multiple waves that only abate now because
| of the rapid deployment of vaccines.
|
| Most importantly, there was very little and late funding
| to cover the costs of those who should most have been
| shut down, group travel, entertainment, dining, etc. -
| should have been fully shut down immediately, and
| everyone's costs covered.
|
| 6-10 weeks of hard shutdown, while standing up a full
| masking, test/trace/isolate protocol would have handled
| it, yet few countries did it.
|
| A few countries did implement early, strong, and
| effective measures, such as New Zealand. They also then
| opened up many months earlier than the rest of the world
| with near-normal life.
|
| Where are the politicians "drunk with power" who are
| restarting lockdowns for their own gratification?
|
| Where is the advantage for such a "drunk on power"
| politician? What could they possible gain by
| unnecessarily implementing measures that are seen at best
| by the smart ones who understand it as a necessary
| inconvenience, and by the rest as an assault on them?
|
| Even flat-out authoritarians do no such thing. E.g.,
| China, who is unashamed to run literal concentration
| camps for Uyghur minorities, and who did hard lockdowns
| at the start, is not opening up as soon as scientifically
| feasible.
|
| Unless you can show some citations of evidence, this
| looks a lot less like a real phenomenon, and more like a
| pseudo-libertarian teenager's trope.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" so more handwashing (good to minimize a broad spectrum
| of pathogens), masks (already culturally ordinary in many
| countries), and especially better indoor ventilation
| systems"_
|
| Let's not forget a substantial portion of the population
| working from home, using less public transportation
| (choosing to travel by car when traveling at all), a huge
| decrease in tourism and large public gatherings, much
| less eating out at restaurants, contactless food delivery
| becoming the norm, etc.
|
| So many factors figure in to why much of the (wealthy,
| developed) world is a lot more resistant to contagious
| pathogens today than it was a year ago.
| kiawe_fire wrote:
| Those measures are not entirely different from the
| measures previously suggested, though.
|
| Obviously your quoted poster's concerns are less about
| "hand washing", "wear a mask if you have symptoms", and
| "stay home" while you recover, and instead are about an
| overreaction in which entire businesses are forced to
| shut down, children without symptoms are forced to wear
| masks even as they run and play, and people are forcibly
| prevented from leaving their homes "just because it's flu
| season".
|
| This may be necessary, at times, for COVID-19, but as you
| recognized, not for the normal flu.
|
| Given the spotty record of both public and private policy
| with regards to using actual science as a driver, these
| are not invalid concerns.
|
| Or put differently, rather than presuming that anyone
| against "doing something" is against "common sense"
| measures, perhaps we should be supportive of making sure
| that we do something, AND that the "something" that we do
| remain in the realm of common sense, to assuage the very
| real concerns that "doing something" could mean something
| more harmful than good.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| 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 down stores makes less sense.
| jampekka wrote:
| 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.
| im3w1l wrote:
| At a super fundamental level, epidemics take place on a
| social graph. In a well connected graph spread will be
| exponential, but depending on graph shape it could be
| something else.
|
| In particular you could imagine that if people never
| venture outside their own block that the social network
| is an euclidean graph. In an ideal case where people are
| evenly spaced in the plane and only interact with
| neighbors, the disease would spread as a circle expanding
| outwards, so total infections would be proportional to ~
| t^2, and current infections ~ t.
| dTal wrote:
| I'm perplexed why anyone would downvote this comment; it
| seems very interesting and insightful to me.
| biomcgary wrote:
| You are essentially describing a supersized plaque assay
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_quantification#Plaqu
| e_as...).
| Majromax wrote:
| > 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
| statistics in these cases. You really can be lucky or
| unlucky with Rt ~= 1, but there's no persistent luck with
| Rt >> 1.)
|
| This is also important before community spreading sets
| in, and it is the mechanism by which contact tracing can
| work. Rather than change the general susceptibility of
| the population to the disease (changing the effective
| reproduction number), contact tracing tries to operate at
| the level of individual cases in ways that cannot be
| scaled to uncontrolled community spreading (even if Rt is
| close to 1).
|
| > and the border closures kept mutations from traveling:
| and influenza is notoriously mutation-prone.
|
| Perhaps, but are influenza mutations an important effect
| _within a single flu season_? I know the determination of
| to-be-dominant strains has a great effect on the
| composition of each season 's flu vaccine, but as far as
| I am aware we don't see declining flu vaccine efficacy
| over a season.
| samatman wrote:
| 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 best-guess at what strains are going
| to be dominant.
|
| We had just concluded a northern-hemisphere flu season
| when travel restrictions started to kick in. This was
| followed by at least a 90% reduction in international
| travel, and for most of what remained, it was mandated
| that new arrivals isolate for long enough to eliminate
| any influenza they might have carried.
|
| Lockdowns would mean less mutation to begin with, since
| it happens in human hosts. And such mutations as did
| present are going to have a tough time jumping oceans,
| and even when they do arrive, spreading through the
| populace is substantially inhibited.
|
| Ironically, the universal mask mandates are likely to be
| more effective against flu than against COVID. Like it or
| not, masking has minimal effect on spreading aerosols,
| although using a "real" mask, and being pretty careful to
| wear it right, can mitigate inhaling those aerosols.
|
| Influenza is believed to be spreadable through aerosols,
| but the primary vector is droplets, while the opposite
| appears to be true for SARS2. Bog-standard cloth masks
| are fairly good at keeping droplets off people and
| surfaces.
| Pyramus wrote:
| 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 to the network of disease
| transmission. The resulting feedback loops lead to the
| meta-stability of R=1. Super interesting how society acts
| as this distributed information processor, similar to
| 'the market' in economics.
| marvin wrote:
| 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.
| timr wrote:
| > Given the reproduction number appears as the base of an
| exponent, I would not consider the difference "small."
|
| The difference _in measurement_ is small, relative to the
| error in measurement.
|
| Look at the error bars on the R0 estimates in that paper.
| Influenza runs from _1.06 to 3.4_. You are trying to make
| micrometer inferences from a parameter where our best
| estimates are measured in libraries of congress.
| Pyramus wrote:
| You are dodging parent's point:
|
| > I have seen no credible evidence that typical (non-
| pandemic) influenza has an R0 greater than that of SARS-
| CoV-2. If you have a citation handy to the contrary, I'd
| be interested in seeing it.
|
| Even if the difference in R of influenza and SARS-Cov-2
| was only 0.1 (and there is no evidence suggesting the
| average difference is that small) _and_ assuming both
| pathogens spread in a similar fashion [1], then over time
| SARS-Cov-2 will fluctuate around the meta-stable point of
| 1.0 and as a result influenza will decrease
| exponentially.
|
| [1] https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/
| 1743-42...
| timr wrote:
| I am not dodging it. As the parent noted _in their own
| post_ , the best mean estimates we have for SARS-CoV2 are
| a fraction of a unit away from the best mean estimates we
| have for influenza or rhinovirus.
|
| Trying to use this tiny relative difference in fuzzy
| estimates of empirical parameters to make a complex
| causal arguments about...well, _anything_...is folly.
| Pyramus wrote:
| Sorry to be harsh here, but that's exactly what I meant
| by dodging: Parent asked for evidence that the R0 of
| influenza is higher _on average_ than the R0 of SARS-
| Cov-2.
|
| If there are no studies to show, refer to an opinion of
| an epidemiologist or any other expert in the spread of
| infectious diseases.
|
| You seem to argue against a vast field of computer
| scientists, mathematicians, physicists, biologists,
| medical experts that do nothing else but study the spread
| of infectious diseases.
| timr wrote:
| > Sorry to be harsh here, but that's exactly what I meant
| by dodging: Parent asked for evidence that the R0 of
| influenza is higher on average than the R0 of SARS-Cov-2.
|
| Burden is on the parent to prove their claim, not for me
| to _disprove_ claims advanced without evidence.
|
| All current estimates for R0 have wide, overlapping
| confidence intervals that make it _impossible_ to
| differentiate them from other viruses. The best anyone
| can say is that Covid and influenza have similar mean R0
| estimates.
|
| > If there are no studies to show, refer to an opinion of
| an epidemiologist or any other expert in the spread of
| infectious diseases.
|
| I cited just such a paper. Please refer to it.
| btilly wrote:
| Last spring COVID was managing to achieve rapid spread at
| the same time that the flu season naturally ended.
| Despite the challenges in measuring R0 for both, this is
| pretty direct evidence that R0 is higher for COVID than
| for the flu.
| achenatx wrote:
| 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.
|
| <<Experts believe that as much as 90 percent of the
| American Indian population may have died from illnesses
| introduced to America by Europeans>>
| Majromax wrote:
| I'm not a clinician or public health policymaker, so I'm
| operating on the balance of probabilities rather than a
| p=0.05 standard.
|
| If you consider the influenza estimate independent of
| equivalent estimates for covid, then there's a
| substantially greater than 50% chance that influenza's R0
| is meaningfully smaller than that of the flu. If the
| estimates are partially dependent (i.e. methodology that
| gives a larger estimate for influenza would also give a
| larger estimate for covid), then that chance goes up
| further.
|
| Moreover, we also have evidence in the _actual
| observations of epidemic dynamics_. Over the southern
| hemisphere fall of 2020 (northern hemisphere spring),
| covid cases increased more rapidly than influenza cases
| in countries that were entering their flu seasons. That
| 's compelling-to-me evidence that covid in fact has a
| larger basic reproductive number, whether that be due to
| a fundamental difference in the virus or just the effects
| of low baseline immunity.
|
| Now, your idea that the particular set of policy
| restrictions may be _more effective_ against influenza
| than covid is very interesting. There 's a basic horse
| sense to it, as well, since policymakers were largely
| operating from a playbook written for a flu pandemic.
| However, I do not think that "more effective" is a
| necessary component of the argument; "at least as
| effective" will do just as well given influenza's low
| baseline prevalence (out of season).
|
| Remember, my original point upthread was not to explain
| every bit of the relative epidemic curves, but instead to
| claim that we really ought not be surprised by the
| difference. I see little need to resort to specialized
| theories to explain the broad outline, even though I'm
| sure they will be helpful in the details.
| smolder wrote:
| Your 2nd paragraph seems to have a mistake: influenza vs
| flu?
| timr wrote:
| > we also have evidence in the actual observations of
| epidemic dynamics. Over the southern hemisphere fall of
| 2020 (northern hemisphere spring), covid cases increased
| more rapidly than influenza cases in countries that were
| entering their flu seasons. That's compelling-to-me
| evidence that covid in fact has a larger basic
| reproductive number
|
| Yes, we know that SARS-CoV2 increased, and influenza went
| away. That's trivially observed. We don't know _why_ flu
| went away.
|
| To turn that observation around and say _" Covid grew
| faster than flu, and therefore it has a higher R0, and
| therefore, the flu went away because {insert your
| favorite NPI} was just good enough to stop it"_ is
| begging the question.
|
| It could just as easily be any number of other factors
| that you're not accounting for. There's also a number of
| other faulty assumptions inherent in your logic. For
| starters: there's no particular reason, _a priori_ , that
| a person couldn't have _both_ flu and SARS-CoV2 in the
| same year.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| Did we even test for the flu? Or did we just presume that flu
| cases were COIVD because the symptoms are so similar?
|
| The idea that the flu just 'disappeared' despite world trade
| continuing just sets off my bullshit detectors. Between all
| the countries that did little or nothing initially, and the
| people who refused to wear masks and didn't lock
| down...there's just no way it dropped to zero. Less? Sure.
| But gone? I simply don't believe it.
| telchar wrote:
| Yes. They didn't just stop testing for flu when someone
| shows up with influenza-like illness (i.e. flu, covid).
| Maybe in some places where medical systems were already
| struggling in normal times, but not in developed nations
| certainly.
| jhayward wrote:
| Yes, everyone with ILI symptoms (influenza-like-illness)
| who goes to one of the clinics or hospitals participating
| in the surveillance program gets tested for about 30
| pathogens. That's how we know what's going on with all
| those critters.
|
| None of that has changed in the era of COVID, although the
| pattern of who goes to clinic for what may have. If there
| were flu out there we'd be detecting it is the bottom line.
| collyw wrote:
| Around Autumn it was subtly mentioned that the UK figures
| were going to be for flu and covid combined.
|
| Before that it was noted that flu was killing more than
| coronavirus in summer.
| jimsmart wrote:
| Do you have any links to substantiate those claims,
| please?
| Uberphallus wrote:
| The WHO has the FluNET program and they constantly test a
| fixed set of people with respiratory symptoms for flu, all
| around the world.
|
| FluNET is precisely why we know flu dropped so much, and
| hence the large chunk of people with respiratory symptoms
| have been COVID-19 or otherwise, but certainly not flu.
| codeulike wrote:
| Flu causes fever, which is one of the signs of covid, causing
| people to isolate. Whereas colds like the rhinovirus have
| different symptoms and are less likely to cause fever and so
| they 'fly under the radar' as it were.
| [deleted]
| spinny wrote:
| humm, i sense a bit of aftertaste of covid data in my fresh flu
| stats
| User23 wrote:
| Why did the flu also disappear in the states that had effectively
| no covid restrictions?
|
| This is a serious question and not an attempt at rhetoric. I
| really am curious. Was flu never a problem in Florida? Was
| voluntary compliance so widespread that heavy handed government
| policy had no marginal anti-flu effect? Something else?
| tedunangst wrote:
| Short answer is that photos of people on the beach are an
| incomplete representation of the situation in Florida.
| kgin wrote:
| Large indoor gatherings, indoor restaurants, bars, were shut
| down for months. Grocery stores enforced or at least encouraged
| their own mask policies. What's more in Florida, those few
| steps covered almost all the ways people really interact there.
| Like much of the US, there is almost zero spontaneous sharing
| of space outside of bars, restaurants, stores and churches.
|
| I personally dislike the isolation of extreme car culture, but
| it does help in situations like this.
| shakezula wrote:
| I never really thought about how America's aversion to public
| transit could be a positive in a pandemic. Interesting point.
| [deleted]
| DanBC wrote:
| Flu is seasonal, and there are large pushes to get people
| vaccinated against flu each year. Sometimes those vaccinations
| are more effective, and sometimes you get more people
| vaccinated. This season it appears both are true.
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| It's only seasonal because of increased indoor/outdoor
| humidity permitting longer micro-droplet aerosol suspension.
| If everyone were wearing masks that trap micro-droplets, then
| flus and colds effectively die out. It's the no maskers and
| chin-guarders that cause infectious agents like SARS-CoV-2,
| flu, and colds to proliferate.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Behavioral change. Flu is generally less infectious than covid,
| so it will take less voluntary behavioral change to get the flu
| R-number below 1 than the covid one.
|
| Also, the whole hand-sanitiser-everywhere thing, while in
| retrospect probably not super effective against covid, would be
| expected to be quite effective for the flu.
| jMyles wrote:
| The notion that horizontal interdiction is responsible for this
| suppression is absolutely, positively absurd and will never
| stand up to scrutiny.
|
| On the other hand, this patterns very neatly with previously
| observed and well-documented phenomena of viral interference,
| specifically with respect to influenza. Here's a good paper to
| start a journey of research on this topic:
| https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/212/11/1690/2911897
| hvac wrote:
| Norovirus was also decimated last year, and it doesn't infect
| the same organs/cells as respiratory viruses:
| https://www.cdc.gov/norovirus/reporting/norostat/data.html
| jMyles wrote:
| Sure. I think it's plausible that widespread surface
| sterilization is responsible for suppression of fomite
| transmission.
| caturopath wrote:
| 1. All places had COVID responses, even places that didn't have
| state-wide rules. I doubt that there were any real number of
| Americans -- even in isolated communities -- whose lives were
| not impacted by public health stuff during COVID.
|
| 2. Having flu outside your border be rarer means less flu
| coming in.
| ska wrote:
| > states that had effectively no covid restrictions?
|
| This isn't really true anywhere, some places had fewer state
| mandated restrictions, but effectively everywhere had
| significant changes in terms of breadth and depth of person-to-
| person contacts.
| lkbm wrote:
| There are a bunch of contributing factors (most schools, indoor
| public places, and workplaces encouraging or requiring masks,
| and many workplaces remote), but one thing that I'd expect to
| help with flu much more than it does with COVID-19 is sick
| people staying home.
|
| Asymptomatic spread is a much larger risk with COVID-19
| compared to the flu. A simple behavior change of "If I feel
| sick, I don't go to work/school/grocery shopping" isn't enough
| to stop COVID, but could cut flu spread a ton by itself.
| ericb wrote:
| I was in Florida two weeks ago--Orlando and Sarasota. I'm a
| Massachusetts resident. In Florida, I observed around 90+% mask
| usage in grocery stores. In a random ColdStone creamery, I saw
| maybe 70%, Five guys was probably 80% except while eating.
|
| In Massachusetts, usage is certainly higher, but maybe in
| practicality, not enough to make a difference compared to other
| factors?
| Kiro wrote:
| 1% mask usage in Sweden and we also have extremely low flu
| numbers.
| ericb wrote:
| Interesting. Do people still associate indoors in large
| numbers, or is that unchanged as well? As in, could
| behavioral change be a driver?
|
| I also wonder, with far less numerical opportunity to
| spread and mutate, if the flu wasn't able to "grow" a good
| candidate with good evolutionary fitness this year, so
| distancing and mask usage affect countries even where they
| aren't practiced.
| cm2012 wrote:
| It's pretty huge that people with cold/flu symptoms now stay
| home or mask up. People used to just cough and sneeze
| everywhere.
| pmontra wrote:
| A single data point: I didn't get flu once since I went self
| employed and started working from home most of the time in
| 2006. Less public transport, less open space offices, less
| restaurants at lunch time. Maybe a coincidence but if people
| had less chances to meet other people, maybe because those
| other people kept social distancing, then they had less chances
| to get flu. It's way less contagious than covid to start with.
| jsight wrote:
| You seem to be implying that Florida had no restrictions, but
| this just isn't the case. Even when I went a couple of months
| ago, masking indoors was the norm and most places still had
| capacity restrictions.
|
| Queues at popular sites were socially distanced outdoors as
| well.
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| Apart from what others said. Flu is seasonal and (most of the
| time?) starts in Asia. With very restricted international
| travel flu simply has less possibilities to come over.
| brandon272 wrote:
| The likely explanation is that, because the flu is
| significantly less transmissible than COVID, even states with
| "no restrictions" were able to knock it out because _enough_
| people took _enough_ measures to protect themselves from
| airborne /surface communicable disease in general.
|
| In other words, you can probably beat back the flu
| significantly by having enough of the population mask up,
| wash/sanitize their hands, etc.
| ericcholis wrote:
| Also, I wonder if there is correlation of at-risk people
| getting more flu shots?
| brandon272 wrote:
| Not sure what the case is overall, but apparently in North
| Dakota, where flu cases were 1/65 of what they were the
| year prior, flu vaccinations are only up 5%:
| https://kfgo.com/2021/04/29/319613/
| petertodd wrote:
| > The likely explanation is that, because the flu is
| significantly less transmissible than COVID
|
| But why is it less transmissible? One obvious explanation is
| because we've lived with it all our lives, and most people
| already have some level of pre-existing immunity to most flu
| strains they're exposed to. Both due to natural infections,
| and vaccines.
|
| > In other words, you can probably beat back the flu
| significantly by having enough of the population mask up,
| wash/sanitize their hands, etc.
|
| If pre-existing immunity is why it's less transmissible,
| those measures will result in fewer flu infections, and thus
| lower levels of pre-existing immunity. Which in turn, may
| make the flu more transmissible, leaving us where we started.
| Worse, if pre-existing immunity is decreasing the severity of
| the infections we do get, the net effect may actually be more
| deaths due to fewer, but more deadly, infections.
|
| Flu vaccines are notoriously ineffective, with a typical year
| being just 50% effective, and bad years being as little as
| 19%. They're probably the least effective widely used
| vaccines by a long shot (eg the MMR vaccine is about 97%
| effective). So we can't just assume we'd be able to make up
| the difference with increased vaccination. Flu vaccine
| coverage is already quite high anyway, 51.8% or so for the
| entire US population.
|
| edit: fixed %
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/flu/fluvaxview/coverage-1920estimates.ht.
| .. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/measles/index.html
| https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/effectiveness-
| studies....
| pmontra wrote:
| Transmissibility (or Basic Reproduction Number - R0) is an
| intrinsic characteristic of a disease.
|
| Measles is at least 3 times more transmissible than flu
| [1].
|
| We have a very effective vaccine against measles and a
| mildly effective one against flu, so people get flu and not
| measles but let them circulate among people without any
| protection and measles will get them sooner than flu. And
| it's also much deadlier [2]
|
| [1] https://transportgeography.org/contents/applications/tr
| anspo...
|
| [2] https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/189/Supplement_1/S
| 4/823...
| petertodd wrote:
| > Transmissibility (or Basic Reproduction Number - R0) is
| an intrinsic characteristic of a disease.
|
| I'm not talking about the theoretical R0, which assumes
| an immunologically naive population. I'm talking about
| the real world reproductive ratio, R, including existing
| immunity. Estimates of real world R for influenza are are
| even lower than the 2-4 your source quoted. Eg, this
| paper estimates a median of just 1.3 for a typical year's
| seasonal influenza: https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.co
| m/articles/10.1186/1471...
|
| With COVID-19's R0 estimated at 2-3, it could easily be
| the case that our measures are sufficient to completely
| wipe out the flu. But not COVID-19: https://www.thelancet
| .com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...
|
| Re: measles, note that pre-vaccine, almost everyone got
| infected with measles at some point in their life,
| usually as a child. You actually see this in how
| effective the early childhood measles vaccination
| programs were: even though only children were being
| vaccinated, a small % of the total population, measles
| rates dropped dramatically(1) almost immediately. The
| adults had already gotten it and were already immune. So
| to wipe it out, we just needed to protect those who
| hadn't been infected: the new, uninfected, children born
| every year. The measles vaccine is attenuated live
| measles after all. So by vaccinating, we just get the
| inevitable infection over with in a controlled way, with
| the odds rigged _enormously_ in your favor.
|
| 1) https://ftp.historyofvaccines.org/index.php/content/gr
| aph-us...
| brandon272 wrote:
| > But why is it less transmissible? One obvious explanation
| is because we've lived with it all our lives
|
| Haven't we lived with different types of coronaviruses all
| of our lives as well, though? It seems at least equally as
| plausible that COVID is more transmissible due to actual
| physical qualities of the virus with respect to replication
| rate, particle size, and other factors that cause more
| virus to be expelled from the body in different ways. It
| could be that the flu is more transmissible by fomites than
| through aerosols, or that less flu virus tends to be
| expelled by the body, or that the flu virus has a more
| difficult time in infecting our cells compared to SARS-
| CoV2.
|
| Of course, this is pure speculation on my part, but from
| what I can tell we lack data for anyone to be drawing any
| firm conclusions on this point.
| khuey wrote:
| Your link says that flu shot coverage is 51.8% for all
| people over 6 months of age. The 64% number is for
| children.
|
| Flu vaccine effectiveness is not great because they have to
| "guess" which variants of the flu will be most prevalent
| months ahead of time due to the manufacturing lead times. A
| lot of experts are optimistic than the mRNA vaccine
| technology will lead to more effective flu shots.
| petertodd wrote:
| Thanks! Fixed.
|
| > A lot of experts are optimistic than the mRNA vaccine
| technology will lead to more effective flu shots.
|
| We will see. Influenza is unusual in its ability to
| evolve new variants that resist existing antibodies. It's
| also not clear that we even _can_ give people repeated
| mRNA vaccine shots year after year. People quite often
| develop antibodies to glycol, which makes up the
| nanospheres used to get the mRNA into cells. Repeated
| shots may lead to severe side effects, and /or the
| nanospheres being destroyed before the mRNA can be
| delivered, rendering the vaccines ineffective.
|
| Incidentally, this is also a problem with the new
| adenovirus technology used in the Astra Zeneca and
| Johnson & Johnson vaccines: your immune system develops
| antibodies to the carrier virus as well as the target
| proteins. Subsequent shots with the same adenovirus can
| be destroyed prior to being able to get into cells and
| express the desired protein; there isn't an infinite
| supply of suitable adenovirus strains. The Sputnik V
| vaccine actually uses a different adenovirus for the
| first and second shots for this reason.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I think this was only a problem with the HIV adenovirus
| vaccines.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| That's not at all an obvious explanation.
|
| There obvious explanation is that different diseases have
| different levels of infectiousness. It just so happens that
| the symptoms the flu causes make it less virulent than
| covid-19.
| peder wrote:
| But the flu has always been here, even when our country was
| significantly less populated, when we were significantly more
| rural, and when people were significantly less connected in
| many ways. Like, how did we get flu pandemics in the 1700s?
| Weren't we less connected back then, even after you account
| for all the social distancing that was done this year?
| mountainboy wrote:
| The flu (influenza) has been linked to solar radiation and
| electricity.
|
| -- quote --
|
| In 2001, Canadian astronomer Ken Tapping showed that the
| influenza pandemics over the previous three centuries
| correlated with peaks in solar magnetic activity, on an 11-
| year cycle. It has also been found that some outbreaks of
| influenza spread over enormous areas in just a few days - a
| fact that is difficult to explain by contagion from one
| person to another. Also, numerous experiments seeking to
| prove direct contagion through close contact, droplets of
| mucus or other processes have proved fruitless.
|
| From 1933 to the present day, virologists have been unable
| to present any experimental study proving that influenza
| spreads through normal contact between people. All attempts
| to do so have met with failure.
|
| -- end quote --
|
| source: https://www.5gexposed.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2019/04/English...
| somebodythere wrote:
| 5gexposed.com is not really a reputable source. Anyway,
|
| > Also, numerous experiments seeking to prove direct
| contagion through close contact, droplets of mucus or
| other processes have proved fruitless.
|
| > From 1933 to the present day, virologists have been
| unable to present any experimental study proving that
| influenza spreads through normal contact between people.
| All attempts to do so have met with failure.
|
| This is just demonstrably false.
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3682679/
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I mean maybe there are viral aerosol reservoirs in the
| clouds but posting stuff from a website called 5gexposed
| is not helping your case.
| anoncake wrote:
| Some of those "flu" pandemics may not have been caused by
| influenza viruses.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _Like, how did we get flu pandemics in the 1700s?_
|
| Germ theory of disease didn't exist back then.
| moftz wrote:
| I remember it not being a huge deal to have a bunch of people
| at work come with flu-like symptoms. "It's just something
| going around." Work gave out flu shots every year but that
| isn't 100%. It wasn't even considered much of a faux pas to
| show up to work feeling a little ill. Now, showing up to work
| with flu-like symptoms could put you in the hot seat with HR.
| Having a bunch of people fall ill in the office now results
| in it being closed for the day for cleaning. It won't stay
| this way forever but it's going to be a while until most
| people go back to being lax on contagious diseases. Imagine
| companies forcing employees and schools forcing students to
| mask up during flu season.
| gregmac wrote:
| I really, really hope that "coming to work sick" is
| considered bad form from now on, or even outright against
| policy.
|
| It's always been dumb: at best they're just getting more
| people sick (some of whom will need to take time off,
| negating any supposed benefit of the sick person not just
| staying home in the first place), and at worst it's
| spreading a flu that eventually results in someone dying.
|
| On top of that, a massive number of companies have just
| proven remote work is possible, even during entirely non-
| ideal conditions (lockdowns, virtual school, high stress,
| etc).
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Every fall, winter and spring, I was able to watch as colds
| and the flu spread around indoors. People would be
| chastised for staying home with "the sniffles", too.
| ggggtez wrote:
| One time I was really sick at an airport McDonalds. Fever,
| sneezing, the whole thing. But you're in an airport, and
| you have to eat something.
|
| I had to explain almost pedantically why they should allow
| me to order verbally instead of using their touchscreens,
| for the safety of the other customers.
|
| I think today, they'd have a protocol to accommodate people
| who are obviously sick so they don't have to touch
| anything. In fact, they probably don't even let healthy
| people use touch screens, if I had to guess.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| You didn't think of just washing your hands and maybe
| using a knuckle to touch the screen instead of going HN
| pedant on the $7/hr worker?
|
| Besides, I would think shooting mucus debris in their
| direction by talking is worse than using a cleaned
| knuckle on a screen far away from them.
| ggggtez wrote:
| So, in your expert medical opinion, given years after the
| fact without any understanding of the illness in
| question... You think that your advice that "you should
| just have washed your hands" is such amazing advice that
| you think it's worth writing here?
|
| What are you hoping to gain? And even if you were right,
| as I said, I had a high fever. It's not like I was
| thinking clearly. Are you trying to feel morally superior
| to someone who was in gravely ill?
| epmaybe wrote:
| I'm really hoping that the culture change in the US is to
| wear masks in public when feeling ill from a respiratory
| infection.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Not wearing masks is a hill many people have chosen to
| literally die on, so while I hope that there is a culture
| change, I expect that anyone wearing masks after the
| pandemic is over will be demonized.
| txsoftwaredev wrote:
| Better yet just stay home.
| mindslight wrote:
| I'm really hoping that the culture change in the US is to
| wear masks in public to thwart facial recognition.
| jcims wrote:
| >Why did the flu also disappear in the states that had
| effectively no covid restrictions?
|
| Where are you getting this take? Life in the US in 2020 is
| _dramatically_ different than it was in 2019.
| Jabbles wrote:
| Flu disappeared globally. With no incoming cases, it would have
| had to spread simply by internal transmission, which by
| definition would be less than usual.
|
| Also, there were probably minor restrictions people took upon
| themselves, like staying home when they had flu-like symptoms,
| or shunning people that coughed.
| [deleted]
| gorbachev wrote:
| I was just commenting to a co-worker my entire family hasn't been
| sick since the pandemic started. That is very unusual for a
| family with young children.
|
| No flu, no stomach viruses, absolutely nothing for more than a
| year now. Thankfully no covid-19 either.
| throwastrike wrote:
| I wonder whether this is actually a good thing over the long
| run? My thinking is that our constant exposure to viruses
| strengthen our immune system.
| papito wrote:
| Stomach viruses. Where in the world are you? No, seriously -
| where? Because here in the United States people don't wash
| their hands before eating. It's fucking gross. I always
| sanitize my hands with alcohol pads before eating out - ALWAYS.
| But the others grab subway poles, handles, those nasty menus,
| and THEN they grab that sandwich _with the same hands_.
|
| If anything should come out of this pandemic, it should be
| Americans following basic hygiene. And I mean - basic. Hand
| sanitizer should be at every table.
| sdoering wrote:
| Living in a metropolitan area in Germany I can attest, that
| this isn't an American phenomena. I think it is a human (or
| at least "civilized" human) phenomena.
|
| My SO has a very strong emetophobia and she is very, very
| clear to not touch any food without having washed her hands
| very good. Even at home. I learned a lot from her and have
| not been sick for ages. I also don't eat out in flu season. I
| just don't. I worked in gastronomy during my time at
| university. I know why I (at least in flu season) just don't
| eat out. as long as people need to earn money and don't get
| sick pay, people go to work when sick. At least I did during
| financially desparate times. So I don't blame the people
| doing it at all - I just don't buy food from them.
| gjs278 wrote:
| lol. ive never washed my hands before eating in my life and
| ive never gotten sick from it. I wish I could post more than
| 2 comments every couple hours to make fun of the germ freaks
| on here, but this one wins too. all that extra work you are
| doing is worth nothing but our amusement now.
| Agathos wrote:
| A norovirus will laugh at your hand sanitizer, as will most
| other non-enveloped viruses.
| logicslave wrote:
| You do realize this is probably all in your head? Like the
| food you eat is probably full of bacteria, the plate you eat
| on, the fork you use?
|
| Like you sit there with an attitude, but in the kitchen you
| cant see your food was cooked on an unclean grill
|
| If it makes you feel superior or better, go ahead.
| papito wrote:
| I am not going to touch a door handle, touched by hundreds
| of people before me, and then touch my burger with the same
| hand. Neither am I going to try and lick the same handle to
| develop immunity and get those precious germs into my
| system.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| You should probably never research eyelash mites.
|
| One thing I always like about human parasites (and no, I
| don't mean your coworkers) is that you can give a rough
| date to the invention of clothing.
| bosswipe wrote:
| I don't have data but my hunch is that being a germophobe
| leads to worse long term health outcomes. Your immune system
| needs the exercise.
| kat wrote:
| 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
| germs could also cause IBS. Sadly you end up with the same
| result. Both approaches, when taken to the extreme, can
| cause equal amounts of health issues.
| papito wrote:
| 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.
| sdoering wrote:
| You don't need to be a germophobe if you just care for
| basic and decent hygiene.
|
| And I really experience a lot of people just not caring for
| basic hygiene at all when outside.
| nimvlaj30 wrote:
| Is washing your hands before eating being a "germophobe" or
| is it basic hygiene? How far back do we go in order to
| improve our immune system? Do we stop washing our hands
| ever? Do we stop washing taking showers?
|
| There's obviously a balance with the best outcome. I doubt
| washing your hands before eating will make your immune
| system any worse.
| distribot wrote:
| Wow tbh I thought this post was being kinda precious until
| the menus thing. That is so gross and has never occurred to
| me.
| userbinator wrote:
| On the other hand (no pun intended), that's how humans
| behaved in general until possibly the last century or so, and
| the immune system exists for a reason. The recent trend of
| hypersanitisation may not be without its negative effects
| either.
| datguacdoh wrote:
| Household with two young children, both under 4, and can
| confirm we have noticed the same thing. No one has been sick
| since last year; it's been one of the few bright spots over
| this time.
| wrycoder wrote:
| I'm retired. I basically changed only two things in my weekly
| routine: I stopped going to a weekly meeting of about fifteen
| old men, and I stopped going to the local hairdresser, which is
| a small group of young women, most of whom have young children,
| and, I suspect, tend to work even if they are slightly ill,
| because they get paid by the haircut.
|
| I usually get two or three colds and one or two flus a year. In
| the past fourteen months, not a sniffle.
| wrycoder wrote:
| Edit: I also stopped eating out about twice a month.
| WA wrote:
| Kindergarten was open and closed here in Germany several times
| in the last 12 months. My kids both caught a cold several times
| within a week after reopening.
| shanecleveland wrote:
| Came here to say the same. Winters are typically a string of
| constant runny noses and a stomach bug or two usually makes its
| way through the entire family each year.
|
| Literally nothing.
|
| While it is nice, I would definitely trade it for my kids to
| have normal social lives again.
| bombcar wrote:
| I suspect a significant reduction of flu vectors is simply
| closed schools.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| Boom. Got it in one, although I expect that a few flu cases
| are being blamed on Covid.
|
| Maybe in a couple more generations of improvement of
| telepresence we can mostly eradicate infectious disease. Next
| up: We each get a nutrient bath and direct hook-up.
| frockington1 wrote:
| You may be interested in Soylent as a food source. It's the
| closest thing I can find to hooking up to an IV for
| nutrients
| wombatpm wrote:
| While I have two myself, I am the first to say it: Children
| are disease carrying vermin
| pchristensen wrote:
| My phrase is "The world is a filthy biological soup", so
| the less we're in the world, the less covered in soup we
| are.
| jcwayne wrote:
| I prefer "walking petri dish".
| Igelau wrote:
| I refer to mine as pint-sized biological weapons labs. I
| never thought catching a cold was such a big deal until I
| caught one that had been mutated first by preschoolers.
| llampx wrote:
| In Germany meanwhile it has become a meme that "schools are
| not the driver off the pandemic" stated by all politicians
| who are obviously taking a page from the Iraqi information
| Ministers playbook.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| That's been borne out by data from several countries,
| children don't seem to readily spread COVID-19. Adults
| are the primary spreaders, which is sort of the reverse
| of the flu.
| f6v wrote:
| Where I live parents don't understand what a lockdown is.
| During extended school holidays the children are all playing
| together. What's the point then?
| kevingadd wrote:
| If they're playing outside, that's probably safer than
| being locked inside poorly-ventilated cages all day
| alongside unvaccinated teachers
| aarondia wrote:
| 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 continuing to wear a mask in crowded places?
| rubicon33 wrote:
| 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 had 0 sick days in 6+ years since I started taking these
| simple precautions.
|
| You don't even need to social distance... just avoid people
| if they're sick. SOME of this is impossible (on an air plane
| for example). Turns out, I very rarely travel so have likely
| just gotten lucky avoiding the dip shits that fly while sick.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Unfortunately if you take crowded subways or buses, or have
| meetings in small rooms with coworkers who have young
| children in school, none of that matters. You still WILL
| get sick.
|
| It doesn't matter how much you wash your hands, or cook
| food at home. Plenty of germs are airborne and linger.
| Unless you stay at home all day long, you're going to get
| sick.
|
| Now some people have much more effective immune systems
| than others, and a lot of that is just genetics. Sounds
| like you're exceptionally lucky here.
| noja wrote:
| > 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.
|
| How do you know this was the biggest factor?
| tehlike wrote:
| I don't think your anecdata proves anything but your own
| experience.
|
| 1. I eat out a lot, including junk food every now and then.
| 2. Of course I hand wash, but i would not say "before
| touching face" per-se, but as often as you'd normally
| expect (restroom breaks, before preparing food and/or
| eating, after coming from outside). 3. I don't really run
| away from sick people. I simply am indifferent.
|
| I still never get sick, i used to, but probably haven't for
| more than 7 years.
| retrac wrote:
| I've worked a variety of jobs. I tend to a lot of mild
| upper respiratory infections I recover from easily
| enough.
|
| The only things I could ever really link were routine
| public transit use. Or when I worked in a bar. When those
| were true I got sick a lot more than when they weren't.
| varajelle wrote:
| I'm also lucky to be quite healthy, almost never sick, The
| last time I had a flu was probably somewhere around 2010,
| because I was still in my second to last job, which was the
| only time ever I had to take a couple of sick days
|
| But my lifestyle is quite different. When restaurants are
| not closed, I eat out at least twice a week. I don't often
| wash my hands. And touch my face all the time. I don't
| bother avoiding sick people because I don't think I'll get
| sick.
|
| I'm the opposite of germ freak. I don't like washing my
| appartment and people visiting me can easily see that.
|
| The social distancing rules had a big impact on me and the
| amount of social I get.
|
| I guess I'm just lucky with my health. Or maybe my hymune
| system is well trained. Who knows?
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| you're like a hedge fund manager who's made money 6+ years
| in a row; your day will come.
|
| You can't "avoid sick people" by moving away from those
| obviously sick. If that were the case this covid thing
| would have been easy. Best bet is your habbit avoided you
| catching hay fever from someone with seasonal allergies.
| allturtles wrote:
| 4) Don't have children.
| crowquill wrote:
| And here comes the childfree brigade again.
| ygra wrote:
| ... that are in kindergarten / school.
|
| But yes, the lockdown a year ago was interesting in that
| I wasn't sick once. But when everyone is at home and you
| can't see anyone, there's no one to get sick from either.
| JoBrad wrote:
| Adopting adult kids is kind of awkward, though.
| tempestn wrote:
| Don't know why you're downvoted; this is true. You can
| personally avoid opportunities for exposure all you want,
| but your 2-8ish year old kids will get colds regularly
| from daycare/school, and then will give them to you. I
| also didn't get sick from March-September 2020. Then
| schools re-opened here, and I was sick within 3 weeks,
| and then again a couple months later. And that's even
| with all the extra sanatization and distancing they were
| trying to do at school.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| don't forget that kids get sick for like 12 hours and
| you're knocked out for several days.
| f6v wrote:
| There's no way to avoid them even if you don't have your
| own. There's always a parent-colleague you have to deal
| with, unless you WFH.
| chrismcb wrote:
| Probably 2 and 3 are bigger factors if not getting sick
| than 1. Although never eating out also reduces your
| exposure to others that may be sick. Of course avoiding
| people who cough and sneeze send a bit paranoid. I don't do
| any of those things, and precovid the only times I got sick
| were after a plane trip out standing in a long line for
| hours.
| incrudible wrote:
| I've done the same except for not eating out, same result.
| I regularly eat at places that perhaps are not the pinnacle
| of hygiene. Doesn't make a difference.
|
| My theory is that your mouth is already a cesspool where
| bacteria colonies fight it all out. It makes sense, because
| "safe" meal preparation is unnatural. Your nose/eyes are
| far more vulnerable.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| A biological warfare zone more or less in balance but a
| "cesspool" is kind of gross and unnecessary. Bacteria
| aren't all bad, and if your digestive tract was suddenly
| without them you'd die from malnutrition if you didn't
| get nutrients through an IV
| thelean12 wrote:
| On the other hand, I don't think I've ever gotten a
| cold/the flu, at least not since I was a young kid, and I
| don't take much care to do anything on your list. Sure,
| I'll wash my hands after using a restroom or before
| prepping food. But I'll definitely walk into a restaurant
| (pre-covid) and just start eating a burger without washing
| my hands first.
|
| I feel the biggest factor is just what body and immune
| system you have... Some people I know just get sick
| constantly, multiple times a year, and they don't seem to
| do much of anything differently than I do. I don't think
| they're secretly licking doorknobs when no one is looking.
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| Even though the plural of anecdotes is not data, I must
| say that my personal experience matches yours as well. I
| pay no attention to disinfection or antiseptic
| cleanliness, and I can't remember the last time I was
| actually ill. In the good old days, whenever someone
| would "warn" me that they were a bit sick before
| hugging/sharing a bottle/shaking hands/etc, I would even
| joke _"Don 't worry, I don't believe in the germ theory
| of disease"_, because in my personal experience it wasn't
| worth the effort to avoid it. Needless to say, that joke
| is now retired--not only because there are very good
| reasons to be cautious regarding COVID-19, but also
| because with so much bizarre denialism that has trended
| lately someone might even believe I was saying it
| seriously.
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| Damn I wish I had your immune system. Pre-covid I would
| get sick every September and probably 2 other times in
| the year (I would have the flu jab every November too!).
| I'm a germaphobe so wash my hands before eating, etc. I
| also try and stay fit, don't smoke and hardly drink
| alcohol.
|
| Unless there's a trick I'm missing here?
| sebmellen wrote:
| Just a thought -- the trick might be trying to be less of
| a germaphobe to build up your immune system (not medical
| advice).
| xadhominemx wrote:
| > 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.
|
| I highly doubt this is the case. And in any event, how
| would you know?
| crazygringo wrote:
| And if it made a difference, I'm guessing it would be
| almost entirely due to a change of diet -- eating
| healthier leading to a stronger immune system.
|
| The idea that restaurants are a major disease vector via
| their food is frankly ridiculous. I'm not saying it
| doesn't happen at all, but just that it's certainly not
| going to be responsible for anything but a _tiny_
| proportion of colds /flus. In terms of interventions for
| staying healthy, it's nowhere _near_ the top.
| sevencolors wrote:
| Well eating at home can also have failures. Few months ago
| I accidentally ate some hot sauce that should have been
| refrigerated but was stored on a room temp. shelf.
|
| Looked fine when i ate it but was violently sick for 3 days
| and thought i had covid :(
| gjs278 wrote:
| i'd rather be sick than live this pathetic life you are
| describing
| incrudible wrote:
| Just washing my hands regularly and not touching my face had
| me avoid colds for many years now. I've never worn a mask
| before COVID.
| eismcc wrote:
| I think I got sick a lot from poorly ventilated meeting
| rooms. I can recall multiple times coming into a room with
| stale air smell and get sick not long after.
| zanmat0 wrote:
| Have you been sleeping more because of WFH? That could be the
| major factor here.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Stopping the spread of disease is on everyone. It's important
| to understand that the precautions _we_ took helped to keep
| _others_ healthy, as well. It 's great to continue with your
| personal hygiene regiment, and it's even better when the
| people you interact with (and the people _they_ interact
| with, etc.) do it too. So, do you what you 've been doing &
| convince others to do the same.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| IF nothing else comes of this I've been much better about
| wiping surfaces and using hand sanitizer. I don't see myself
| going around indoors everywhere with a mask, but I won't feel
| weird doing it during flu season either. Hopefully it's a bit
| more normalized.
| f6v wrote:
| Usually my colleagues at the office didn't wash their hands
| before eating and showed not so great overall hygiene. They
| also missed many days due to "stomach bug". And then there're
| people with children, they're always sick. Yes, it's been a
| great year in terms of not having to deal with many people.
| But I have to say I'm a bit worried it'll go back to usual
| soon.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Just to add onto the anecdote pile. I used to work for a
| Silicon Valley tech company which, due to it's well-known
| obsession with secrecy, had office buildings with a lot of
| closed doors you needed to grab and open to get anywhere.
| Probably 4-6 different doors to handle just to get to my
| own office (itself with a door that people grab). I've
| never taken more sick days in my life. I always seemed to
| have some sort of URT infection or stomach bug, despite
| trying my best to keep good hygiene.
| crocsarecool wrote:
| I am hoping people get serious about staying home if
| they're sick. "I'm not contagious." If you're not
| contagious, then how did the whole office get wiped out?
| 988747 wrote:
| My take on that is: since pandemic started governments have been
| pretty paranoid, imposing a lot of burdensome restrictions on
| their citizens, like mandatory quarantine. This incentivized
| people to never go to doctor unless absolutely necessary, which
| means that most flu cases go undiagnosed.
| [deleted]
| splithalf wrote:
| I hope reasonable people can see the potential for incentives to
| impact various public health measurements in ways that cannot yet
| be detected or well accounted for. Surely some aspect of flu
| disappearing is impacted by the priorities of thinly stretched
| medical personnel, what with a pandemic and all why would anybody
| test for flu? Who even tests patients for flu in the first place?
| It's not recommended.
| ibraheemdev wrote:
| Just speculating here, but maybe because of false positives where
| flu cases get labeled as Covid? I've heard that PCR tests were
| not meant to be used for large scale virus detection.
|
| EDIT: The PCR test quote was fact checked and deemed to be
| misleading, but it still sounds like they are not very accurate
| [0].
|
| [0]: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-pcr-
| idUSKBN2442...
| silicon2401 wrote:
| The inventor of the PCR test himself, Kary Mullis, was very
| critical of Fauci and the way that PCR is being used today [1].
| Are there any rebuttals or counterpoints to his statements on
| PCR?
|
| 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0aMow7FrZo
| tripletao wrote:
| Kary Mullis also doubts that HIV causes AIDS, believes in
| astrology, and once saw a fluorescent talking raccoon.
| Clearly a brilliant guy, but not someone whose advice should
| directly determine clinical practice.
|
| https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/technology-history/man-
| who...
|
| See my other comment here for the reasons why I believe
| almost all SARS-CoV-2 PCR positives are true positives (as to
| whether the patient is or was very recently infected; the
| kernel of truth is that they don't necessarily indicate that
| the patient could infect others right now).
| silicon2401 wrote:
| That's an ad-hominem argument. You might as well say Isaac
| Newton also believed in astrology, so we should throw out
| all his work on math and physics. As a non-religious
| person, astrology and religion are no different to me, so
| then you might as well throw out any knowledge innovated by
| like 99% of people who have ever lived.
|
| I have no stake or attachment to Kary Mullis, whether he's
| wrong or right is irrelevant to me. I just find it
| interesting that the creator of PCR, which has a lot of
| attention these days, had opinions that don't get a lot of
| attention these days. I'll give your comment a look, but am
| also curious if anybody else has a counter to Mullis'
| claims.
| tripletao wrote:
| > That's an ad-hominem argument.
|
| And yours was an argument from authority. You gave no
| explanation of or support for Mullis's arguments, and you
| gave no reason to believe his conclusion except a
| positive aspect of his reputation (i.e., his discovery of
| PCR in the first place).
|
| In that case, negative aspects of his reputation (i.e.,
| the fluorescent raccoon; or, closer to the domain in
| question, his belief on HIV and AIDS) are surely also
| relevant. They don't mean what he's saying is false, but
| they'd cause a reasonable person to approach his
| unsupported statements with more care.
|
| For convenience, I'm linking my other comment below. This
| is a detailed explanation of why I believe almost all
| patients who test positive by PCR are (or were very
| recently) infected with SARS-CoV-2, fully referenced. It
| has so far received zero interaction.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26984429
|
| If you think I'm wrong, please explain why, and I'll
| reply. If you think I'm right, then I'd also appreciate a
| reply. The belief that coronavirus cases are grossly
| over-diagnosed is a common element of claims that no
| precautions against it are necessary, which cause real
| harm; so I hope you don't want to falsely spread that
| belief.
|
| ETA: And for completeness, here's a paper discussing the
| ability to culture virus from PCR-positive samples. I
| believe that's the real point Mullis was alluding to in
| his comments, that people who test PCR positive aren't
| necessarily shedding replication-competent virus; but
| that's a separate question from whether they are (or very
| recently were) infected.
|
| https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-
| article/doi/10.1093/cid...
| throwaway91211 wrote:
| Wow, I was not aware of the real quotes. Here are the two
| full clips:
|
| - On HIV and PCR:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V__Zx0qS7uI&t=101s - On Fauci
| and PCR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aISPlTLbJo
|
| > Reporter: .... misuse PCR to estimate all these so
| supposedly free viral RNAs that may or may not be there?
|
| > Kary Mullis: I think misused PCR is not quite ... I don't
| think you can misuse PCR. No, the results, the interpretation
| of it. See if you can say, if they wanted, if they could find
| this virus in you at all, and with PCR if you do it well you
| can find almost anything in anybody. It starts making you
| believe in the, sort of buddhist notion, that everything is
| contained in everything else. Right, I mean because if you
| can amplify one single molecule up to to something that you
| can really measure which PCR can do, then there's just very
| few molecules that you don't have at least one single one of
| them in your body. Okay, so that could be thought of as a
| misuse of it just to claim that it's meaningful. It is,
| there's very little of what they call HIV and what's been
| brought out here by Phil ... the measurement for it is not
| exact at all, it's not it's not as good as our measurement
| for things like apples. An apple is an apple. You know, you
| can get something that's kind of like, if you've got enough
| things that look kind of like an apple you stick them all
| together you might think it as an apple. And HIV is like
| that. Those tests are all based on things that are invisible,
| and they are the results are inferred in a sense. PCR is
| separate from that, it's just a process that's used to make a
| whole lot of something out of something that's why it's not,
| it doesn't tell you that you're sick and it doesn't tell you
| that the thing you ended up with really was going to hurt you
| or anything like that.
| dundarious wrote:
| I am deeply skeptical. There are major differences between
| influenza and COVID-19 symptoms. Never mind the shakiness of
| your premise about PCR tests.
| petertodd wrote:
| It may even be the case that fewer people are seeking medical
| care for symptoms that they (correctly) think are just the flu.
| The lack of smell that COVID often causes is very distinct;
| easy to imagine people who are sick with the flu, but have
| _not_ lost their sense of smell deciding to stay home both out
| of fear of covid, and because accessing medical care during a
| pandemic is less convenient.
|
| Some people may also be worried that they _do_ have covid (or
| will get a false positive), and don 't want to get a positive
| test due to quarantine requirements, embarrassment, etc.
| tpmx wrote:
| For all of the weird things my country Sweden has done (and
| perhaps more importantly - not done) in the past year,
| shaming and financially punishing people with covid is not
| one of them.
|
| The flu didn't happen here either according to the long
| standing sentinel testing program.
|
| https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/folkhalsorapportering-
| st... (Swedish, published today)
|
| Summary: 145k people were tested (1.4% of the total
| population), 29 people tested positive for an influenza
| variant during the winter season 2020/2021. Typical numbers
| for previous years are in the thousands.
|
| Graph comparing winter seasons: https://www.folkhalsomyndighe
| ten.se/contentassets/a9433fcecd...
|
| (X-axis: week number, Y-axis: number of cases.)
| linuxftw wrote:
| Most people (with flu-like symptoms) don't contract influenza
| in a given year, and the number of cases the CDC puts out each
| year are comprised mostly of 'suspected' cases.
|
| Between the flu and covid, case reporting numbers are wildly
| unreliable.
|
| One might ask, what incentives are there to over report a given
| illness at any given time?
| txsoftwaredev wrote:
| "One might ask, what incentives are there to over report a
| given illness at any given time?"
|
| It allows the government to create fear and panic and pass
| broad sweeping bills with huge budgets. All in the name of
| "Covid Relief" etc.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| If you are Newsom or Cuomo, you get enormous amounts of
| power.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Yes, that's the hypothesis of the "There's no Covid-19" crowd
| that will disappear whenever hospital corridors are filled with
| dead bodies.
|
| On the other hand PCR test are not inaccurate at all, at least
| regarding false positives. There are detailed articles and even
| Youtube videos on the process and if you take a look, you will
| understand why it's quite accurate.
|
| In essence, they create a reaction that will mass produce
| specific parts of the virus gene until it's detectable with a
| sensor. They run the reaction multiple times and then the
| sensor looks for luminance if I recall correctly.
|
| Because you can't accidentally produce Covid-19 genes, the
| tests are very accurate. However, you might not get enough
| virus material when taking the sample from the patient(which
| can fail your reaction or you might need more cycles than usual
| to create a detectable amount) or it could be the case that
| there's a mutation in the gene that you are attempting to
| multiply, therefore you can get a negative test for an infected
| person.
| collyw wrote:
| > On the other hand PCR test are not inaccurate at all, at
| least regarding false positives.
|
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2.
| ..
|
| between 0.8% and 4% false positive rate according to that,
| making them completely unsuitable for mass testing. On top of
| that BBC's panorama did a program pointing out the sloppy
| standards at centers where the tests are processed.
| mrtksn wrote:
| How did you decide that this range exactly is unsuitable
| enough that we are better off we simply assume that the
| reality is the one that suits our agenda? IMHO that's a
| pretty good accuracy, significantly better than the "I feel
| like", "I want to believe that", "what if it's all about"
| or the "It's suits me better if" methodologies.
|
| I'm not being snarky, I simply want to outline the
| alternatives I'm aware of.
|
| I respect the accuracy of the PCR, it can literally tell us
| why people in India are dying off on the streets right now
| in thousands and we even cannot see the assailant through
| optical magnification. It can also tell us that it's the
| same thing that caused the exact same situation in NY and
| Italy.
|
| It's amazing, much more intriguing than any other
| explanation that I came across.
| MR4D wrote:
| I'm not the OP, but the rest of the paragraph that the
| quote above was linked to reads as follows (note the last
| 3 words in the quote):
|
| * This rate could translate into a significant proportion
| of false-positive results daily due to the current low
| prevalence of the virus in the UK population, adversely
| affecting the positive predictive value of the test.2
| Considering that the UK National Health Service employs
| 1*1 million health-care workers, many of whom have been
| exposed to COVID-19 at the peak of the first wave, the
| potential disruption to health and social services due to
| false positives could be considerable.*
| collyw wrote:
| At the height of the "second wave" here, it was estimated
| that around 0.8% of the population was infected at the
| time. That means that if you were randomly tested there
| was a greater chance that you would have a false positive
| than an actual infection.
| mrtksn wrote:
| That would be unfortunate to all those prevalence studies
| where the difference between 1.1 and % 0.3 means the
| world for them. They may never know if it was %0.5 or
| %0.8 of the people infected.
|
| On the other hand, it's a pretty good accuracy when you
| have a hospital full of sick people. Sure, you may end up
| recommending 14 days of staying at home every now and
| then when it's not necessary.
|
| See, the PCR test is just one of the clues that is used
| to diagnose people. Negative test with clearly Covid-19
| symptoms and medical image of the lungs showing spots
| gets you a bed and treatment in the hospital. Positive
| test and no symptoms gets you stay at home and wear a
| mask recommendation.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Nevermind the fact that as we find more people positive we
| see an increase in hospitalizations and mortality shortly
| afterwards, why in these charts[1] did Alberta get so many
| sub 0.8% 7 day rolling averages then?
|
| https://www.alberta.ca/stats/covid-19-alberta-
| statistics.htm...
| petertodd wrote:
| > On the other hand PCR test are not inaccurate at all, at
| least regarding false positives.
|
| PCR tests work by selectively amplifying DNA. Each PCR test
| cycle approximately doubles the amount of the selected DNA.
| (for SARS-CoV-2, an RNA virus, the RNA is first converted to
| DNA)
|
| Since each cycle approximately doubles the amount of selected
| DNA present, PCR tests can be _extraordinarily_ sensitive if
| enough cycles are used. In theory, just a single fragment of
| RNA could result in a positive test. As Health Canada says:
|
| "There are numerous studies that demonstrate prolonged
| detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA that extends beyond the
| resolution of COVID-19 symptoms and can persist for several
| weeks or months." https://www.canada.ca/en/public-
| health/services/diseases/201...
|
| Hospitals are testing pretty much everyone who comes in the
| door for COVID-19. The fact that people can test positive
| long after they were actually infected should obviously raise
| questions about the accuracy of our statistics with regard to
| COVID-19 hospitalization and death rates.
|
| Additionally, contamination is a potential problem. For
| example, the BBC's undercover reporting found significant
| cross-contamination between samples at one testing lab:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56556806
|
| Contamination could be showing up as a multiplier on true
| positives: as positive % increases, opportunities for
| contamination also increase. Since PCR tests work by
| replicating DNA, they also have the unusual property that the
| testing process itself creates large quantities of potential
| contamination. Good lab practice will eliminate that problem.
| But that's hard to guarantee when testing volume is increased
| enormously in a short period of time.
| mrtksn wrote:
| That's not PCR's but the sample processing error rate. It's
| not inherent to PCR but the specific organisation that runs
| the mass testing efforts. If UK's has these issues the
| maybe they should improve their quality standards.
|
| Thankfully we don't have to stop with a PCR test.
| g3e0 wrote:
| I believe the source of that quote comes from this Q&A session
| with Kary Mullis, the inventor of PCR:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT3IqZjT_9A
|
| The relevant quotes from Kary are:
|
| "With PCR, if you do it well, you can find almost anything, in
| anybody"
|
| "If you can amplify one single molecule up to something that
| you can really measure - which PCR can do - then there's just..
| very few molecules that you don't have at least one single one
| of them in your body"
|
| "It doesn't tell you that you're sick"
|
| My interpretation is that Kary Mullis did believe it was at
| least possible to "misinterpret" the results of a PCR test. It
| doesn't seem such a stretch to believe that you could be sick
| with the flu, while also having a single molecule of a
| coronavirus gene present in your nasal cavity (triggering a
| positive coronavirus test).
|
| Note: I know this is an inflammatory topic. The views of Kary
| Mullis are not necessarily my own. I am posting this here
| because I think it is interesting.
| markus92 wrote:
| That's why there's digital qPCR now, testing has come a long
| way since 1993. Larger targets etc.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| You don't deserve the downvotes. There's long been speculation
| that flu cases may be getting reported as COVID and vice-versa
| because of the symptom overlap.
| space_fountain wrote:
| Hum, I think I've only heard of this speculation coming from
| people who deny covid is a big deal and not that that
| position should be dismissed out of hand, but the
| overwhelming evidence is that the strong version of it at
| least is wrong.
|
| I'm also struggling to understand how symptom overlap would
| lead differences in the number of confirmed cases with PCR
| tests. These aren't cases confirmed by doctors talking to you
| and running through a checklist, these are tests that with a
| great degree of accuracy confirm if you have flu or covid in
| your system
| linuxftw wrote:
| Perhaps the corona virus is asymptomatic for some people
| (as is known to be), and the effects they are feeling are
| from the flu. How many people get a false positive (or true
| positive that would otherwise be asymptomatic) while also
| being positive for the flu?
|
| Maybe corona virus is an enabler of some other disease,
| like a particularly virulent flu or some other respiratory
| infection.
|
| This questions are inconvenient, so they'll go unasked by
| the media, let alone answered.
| maxerickson wrote:
| There's lots and lots of samples being tested for flu. Is
| the theory then that there is some bias where the hidden
| cases don't get tested for flu at all and only mistakes
| are sent for testing?
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm
|
| It says right on the page that Covid makes the data
| difficult to interpret, the thing I'm pointing to is the
| 900,000 samples tested.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| > This questions are inconvenient, so they'll go unasked
| by the media, let alone answered.
|
| Literally an infinite number of questions go unasked by
| the media. Often because they're a pointless waste of
| time.
|
| I'd say if leading virologists around the world looked at
| it in a lab and agree it's not some mystery illness, most
| media will go with that. At least the reputable ones not
| fishing for cheap attention from paranoid conspiracy
| theorists.
| linuxftw wrote:
| Leading virologists said not to give people anti-
| inflammatories at the beginning of the pandemic and
| probably killed a bunch of people.
|
| > At least the reputable ones not fishing for cheap
| attention from paranoid conspiracy theorists.
|
| We're not talking about paranoid conspiracy theories
| here, we're talking about the inexplicable disappearance
| of influenza globally, when it should have the same
| transmission characteristics as corona virus. Corona
| might spread more rapidly, but it should spread in the
| same manner.
|
| It's entirely possible that the bulk of people with
| symptoms actually have a concurrent infection (eg, the
| flu). We already know the vast, vast majority of deaths
| have a 'comorbidity.'
| space_fountain wrote:
| > when it should have the same transmission
| characteristics as corona virus. Corona might spread more
| rapidly, but it should spread in the same manner.
|
| That's just like not true. Different diseases spread
| differently. It seems like covid will spread better
| through smaller droplets for example. And even if it were
| you just said that covid spreads easier. Disease
| transmission isn't linear so if interventions were enough
| to dip Flu's reproduction rate below 1 we'd see more or
| less what we've seen. Very little spread. Even if we
| ignore all of that and pretend you're right and really
| this year of horror has just been Flu cases, the health
| care system almost collapse in Italy, NYC, LA, and now
| India is still a huge deal. Hugely more people are dying
| this year than do in an average year. People died,
| literally dies in all of these places because they
| weren't able to get into a hospital. I don't care if it
| was actually covid (it was) or not killing them
| linuxftw wrote:
| > the health care system almost collapse in Italy, NYC,
| LA, and now India is still a huge deal.
|
| This I can agree with. But our way of dealing with the
| problem hasn't solved that going forward whatsoever. Are
| we going to ignore the fact that NYC has been shutting
| down hospitals for decades[1]?
|
| > Hugely more people are dying this year than do in an
| average year.
|
| Not according to the numbers I've seen.
|
| > People died, literally dies in all of these places
| because they weren't able to get into a hospital.
|
| What are the death rates for people in hospitals compared
| to people dying with covid outside of hospitals? What
| interventions are hospitals providing to most patients
| that are conclusively saving their lives? At first, it
| was ventilators, but that has quietly become not
| recommend for most patients.
|
| I happen to be close friends with someone that worked on
| the covid floor in a major regional hospital. Most people
| in the hospital were being treated for pneumonia, some of
| them were on supplemental oxygen. The hospital was never
| overrun, only a small portion was dedicated as a covid
| wing.
|
| My friend never contracted covid, nor did anyone else
| they worked with.
|
| 1: https://indypendent.org/2014/04/nycs-vanishing-
| hospitals/
| space_fountain wrote:
| I mean the first one is possible. I think it has been
| thought of though, we do random testing sometimes and at
| least some covid samples are also tested for flu.
|
| The second just seems wrong. Like it could have been true
| a year ago, but it really would be known by now and there
| really isn't any reason it would be inconvenient for any
| sort of narrative. Diseases that weaken your immune
| system enough for some other disease to be killing loads
| of people are still worrying and big deals. We would
| still be calling for lock downs regardless of if covid is
| directly or indirectly causing extra deaths
| linuxftw wrote:
| > Diseases that weaken your immune system
|
| Why are some people to be weakened and not others? Maybe
| that's what we should be investigating.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| This speculation has also been long debunked with a look at
| the mortality per week/month compared to the same time period
| in 2019. Which revealed that at least in early 2020 a ton of
| deaths were unaccounted for, due to limited Covid-19 testing
| as well as deaths indirectly caused by Covid-19(delayed
| surgery thanks to overloaded hospitals etc.)
| ibejoeb wrote:
| This is the problem with "presumptive positive." If you call
| the physician and he says "sounds like covid, call me if you
| develop serious breathing problems" and that never happens,
| like in most cases, now were are not counting anything, or
| worse, counting one as the other.
| collyw wrote:
| It's even possible that you could have both. They aren't
| mutually exclusive as far as I am aware.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I know in our region they aggressively and specifically checked
| for flu and found none this year, so it is definitely not for a
| lack of testing. I have no idea why people are so uncomfortable
| with the idea that what worked to deter COVID had an even
| greater effect on the flu.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-nears-end-of...
| jedberg wrote:
| Every COVID test I took included a separate influenza test. Not
| sure if that was the case everywhere though. But at least in my
| case flu would get labeled flu.
| dheera wrote:
| I mean, no shit, they didn't ask _me_ , so their stats are
| wrong. Pretty sure I got the flu last year during the pandemic.
| (Got a negative COVID test.)
| nodesocket wrote:
| Absolutely agree that standard flu cases are surely being
| reported as covid.
| sputr wrote:
| Usually only positive PCR test leads to a covid diagnosis and
| reporting.
| corty wrote:
| Depends, different countries (and sometimes states) have
| different standards there. And those reporting standards
| also sometimes changed over time. Which is why numbers are
| not completely comparable internationally and from
| different periods of the pandemic without a lot of
| additional interpretation.
| aeternum wrote:
| I'd also like to see the data normalized by number of flu tests
| administered. Maybe people are just not getting tested for flu
| to avoid a possible covid exposure.
| khuey wrote:
| What in that link sounds "not very accurate"?
| hammock wrote:
| The test detects "viral material" and "does not indicate that
| the virus is fully intact and infectious, i.e. able to cause
| infection in other people."
|
| The fraud is not in the test itself, but in the reporting of
| test results. When a PCR test comes back positive, more often
| than not it is assumed the patient is infected with COVID
| (which may not be the case) - and cases of infected people
| are reported widely using these PCR test results.
| nojokes wrote:
| In your opinion what is the percentage of the questionable
| test results in your opinion?
|
| What other method would you suggest in replacement to
| verify if a person is possibly infectious?
| tripletao wrote:
| The test positivity in lightly-affected areas is very small,
| for example <0.1% in much of Australia. This includes both true
| and false positives, so it bounds the specificity of the test.
|
| https://covidlive.com.au/report/positive-test-rate
|
| A Lancet article cited below references a paper that estimates
| much worse specificity of PCR tests for SARS-CoV-2 based on the
| specificity of tests for other RNA viruses (original SARS,
| MERS, influenza, etc.):
|
| https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.26.20080911v...
|
| But why would anyone do that, when we have direct experience
| with the actual test for the actual virus?
|
| Of course the false positive rate in heavily-affected areas may
| be higher, due to sample contamination--with more true positive
| patients, there's more opportunity for one true-positive
| patient to contaminate multiple samples. But such cross-
| contamination can occur frequently only if there are actually
| lots of true positive patients.
|
| For another sanity check, the sensitivity of antibody tests is
| established on a sample of patients who tested positive by PCR,
| who are assumed to all be true-positive. So any PCR false-
| positive among those patients will show up as an antibody
| false-negative, so that bounds the apparent sensitivity of
| those antibody tests. But antibody tests show sensitivity
| around 85%:
|
| https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
|
| So even if the antibody tests were perfect, at most 15% of
| their positive sample was false-positive. (Note that this is a
| different quantity from the PCR specificity, and can't be
| translated into such without knowing the true prevalence in the
| population that the sample was drawn from.) Of course the
| antibody tests also aren't perfect, and I'd guess that 15% is
| almost entirely antibody false-negatives rather than PCR false-
| positives.
|
| You can also compare reported COVID deaths (which are generally
| established by PCR) with year-over-year excess mortality. The
| agreement isn't perfect, but it's pretty close.
|
| The vast majority of patients who test positive by PCR are or
| were infected by the virus. That's a different question from
| whether a positive test indicates the presence of replication-
| competent virus (i.e., whether the patient could infect others
| right now), since RNA from dead virus can trigger the positive
| too; but that dead virus had to come from somewhere.
| Pyramus wrote:
| I'd like to highlight this previous discussion on influenza: On
| the epidemiology of influenza (2008) [1]
|
| In this paper, in 2008, researchers observe and conjecture a
| number of things that we now know also apply to SARS-Cov-2:
|
| * The long-tailed distribution of R: Few infect many
|
| * A low secondary attack (household infection) rate of 20-30%
|
| * 'Asymptomatic' infection as opposed to sick-to-well infection
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26857283
| JulianMorrison wrote:
| Maybe we were too callous just allowing the ordinary flu to run
| rampant, and we should consider in future doing things like
| masking up when a flu season is expected, so as to stop the
| disease from killing thousands of old people. And also possibly
| consider going for full eradication rather than harm reduction.
| Can flu jabs be made more effective, and multi-strain, using mRNA
| vaccine technology? That's a genuinely new tool in the toolbox.
| educaysean wrote:
| Masks during flu seasons is already the norm in various Asian
| countries: Korea, Japan, China, etc. I think their previous
| experiences dealing with SARS and MERS have taught a valuable
| lesson for the masses.
| trutannus wrote:
| 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 used against
| over policed groups. Studies show that education and awareness
| works just as well as state intervention.
| Splendor wrote:
| The comment you're replying to never mentioned regulations or
| any governmental intervention.
| NoSorryCannot wrote:
| 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.
| taeric wrote:
| My money is on schools being a more active vector than makes
| sense. And I don't see us closing them like we did on a regular
| basis.
| graeme wrote:
| It would be sensible to improve school air quality: increase
| ventilation, install air purifiers, etc
|
| That would reduce the spread of infectious diseases even with
| schools open as normal.
| taeric wrote:
| I mean. Yes. But kids also touch things far more than
| adults. Combined with less developed immune systems, I
| suspect there is a floor to how well you can reduce
| transmission. More, it is almost certainly related to this
| densely populated the school is. Which, not surprisingly,
| will hit poor schools harder.
|
| Edit: furthering this idea, buses are not likely to keep
| the same protocols they have now.
| csomar wrote:
| > we should consider in future doing things like masking up
| when a flu season is expected, so as to stop the disease from
| killing thousands of old people
|
| Some societies in Asia have been doing that for quite sometime.
| tomComb wrote:
| I think some minor measures - mainly just being more
| considerate when you think you might have the flu - could make
| a big difference.
|
| Before this year people would still go to work when sick,
| parents would still let their kids blow out the candles on a
| cake, everyone at the big event would kiss the same cheeks,
| etc.
| valarauko wrote:
| > _Can flu jabs be made more effective, and multi-strain, using
| mRNA vaccine technology? That 's a genuinely new tool in the
| toolbox._
|
| In theory, yes; in practice, I don't see this happening for
| some time (outside of a possible combined SARS-CoV-2 booster +
| flu combo). The mRNA vaccines are expensive to produce, and
| it's hard to justify a cost multiplier that's a magnitude
| higher & harder to produce. Flu vaccines are already multi-
| strain, and the current techniques already attempt to generate
| the recombinant strains that might be generated in the wild.
| Flu mutates faster than the current egg based vaccine
| production pipeline can handle, and the mRNA vaccine pipeline
| is orders of magnitude smaller in scale. This will change, of
| course.
| ggm wrote:
| The perverse outcome being issues for toddlers who don't develop
| strong immunity? The single year on year outcome 20,000+ to 1000-
| is amazing, but, what if this lays the seeds for a future
| influenza pandemic?
| ipaddr wrote:
| Air travel reduction, staying at home and distancing as playing
| big roles.
|
| Perhaps we should continue this way.
| [deleted]
| shoto_io wrote:
| If I remember correctly, Prof. Drosten speculated about a heavy
| cold and flu season coming winter because we basically skipped
| one season.
|
| Remains to be seen I guess, but this prognosis resonated with me.
| cavejay wrote:
| With Australia being effectively Covid free we've already
| started to see much stronger cases of the flu.
|
| Local doctors in my City (Canberra) told multiple people I've
| talked with that the extra protective steps taken last year
| meant our bodies weren't as well positioned to handle the
| standard flu when we caught it.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| If that is the case, expect to see it here in the antipodes
| first. In NZ we had a almost cold and flu free season last
| winter, just six confirmed cases in a country of 5 million [1],
| and are heading into winter now with looser border restrictions
| (relatively looser, Australians can now enter without being put
| into a managed isolation facility for two weeks).
|
| [1]
| https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/20187...
| newsbinator wrote:
| What factors would cause skipping a season to result in more
| flu the following season?
| shoto_io wrote:
| Decreasing levels of antibodies for example, which makes re-
| infections more likely for endemic diseases like colds/flus.
| flarg wrote:
| Covid probably killed off flu in nasal passages kind of like the
| common cold does to other viruses
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| Unlikely/impossible to kill off all strains. Enough will
| survive that it will come back, just it will likely take longer
| to transmit due to greatly-reduced numbers of infected hosts.
| collyw wrote:
| Imagine actually believing this. The UK started counting flu and
| coronavirus as one in Autumn.
| rodolphoarruda wrote:
| The second line chart showing 'Temperature South America' does
| not include Brazil. Why? The country represents ~1/2 of South
| America's population. I'm just curious.
| cies wrote:
| Covid-19 case counting is a mess. Usually it's based on "the PCR
| test" which is actually a group of many different tests (the
| chains they test on can be different and the number of cycles can
| be different as well). Cases may go undetected, so testing-after-
| symptoms is very different than testing-random-population-sample.
| Sometime cases are filed based on symptoms alone. Hence we know
| very little about the number of C19 cases.
|
| This was also a problem with the flu: they were always estimates.
|
| I prefer to look at excess all cause mortality (per 100
| inhabitants) or z-index to get a grip on the size/movement of
| this pandemic. Most developed nations keep track of deaths very
| well.
| president wrote:
| There are critics saying that the PCR cycle thresholds they
| used for testing were too high (37-40). If you look at the
| values they use for determining covid post-vaccination, they
| used a cycle threshold of 28. Thoughts?
| https://twitter.com/MichaelPSenger/status/138783651725969408...
| eecc wrote:
| Hopefully this won't cause selective pressure on flu viruses to
| become more aggressive.
| JulianMorrison wrote:
| If a more infectious variant surfaced, it might spread. But a
| lower absolute prevalence of flu (because of masks, social
| distancing, and lockdowns) means that low probability events -
| like a more virulent strain emerging - are less likely, and
| might not occur at all.
|
| Contrariwise this (beside basic humanity) is why the current
| out of control situation in India or Brazil is everyone's
| problem. High absolute prevalence means events that are one in
| a billion chance get to happen. And spread.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Diseases have no trouble spreading through ordinary intimate
| social interactions with friends and family. In fact, you're
| far more likely to get sick from someone you are close to and
| spend hours with than someone you just pass by in a retail
| store. Lockdowns and mask policy are not neatly correlated
| with lower infection rates or death counts. Simple
| counterfactual example is Florida vs. California. Same
| results, vastly different policies. One has been open with no
| masking, no limits on indoor capacity, etc for over 9 months,
| and one has tightly restricted public congregation. Same
| results. Disproves the hypothesis.
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| Unless of course you look at the city level, where
| different policies and different levels of compliance
| correlate quite clearly with cases: look at San Francisco
| or San Jose compared to Miami or Los Angeles.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Not at all, you can cherry pick cities and that proves
| nothing, they all have vastly different demographics,
| different density, different climates, etc. For example,
| New York City is one of the worst performing metros on
| the planet despite harsh restrictions (and high
| compliance) at the city and state level and in
| neighboring states. There's no discernible pattern in the
| data.
| audessuscest wrote:
| https://twitter.com/ianmSC/status/1387864442386325504
| jccooper wrote:
| You always fight the last war. Covid measures started as flu
| measures, and to a great extent still are even though we now know
| (and knew fairly early) that the transmission modes differ
| significantly.
| bla3 wrote:
| I thought we know by now that transmission mode is more similar
| than initially thought? That is, it's mostly airborne for both
| covid and flu.
| jccooper wrote:
| Flu has significant fomite transmission, both direct and from
| emissions, where CoV-2 basically has none. Aerosol
| transmission is present in flu, but nowhere near as strong as
| CoV-2. There are definitely some overlaps, like direct large
| droplet transmission (which make measures like masks work for
| both.)
|
| Sanitation and "social distancing" work for flu, but
| coronavirus is mainly about ventilation.
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