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Thread: The end of the annual flu

  1. #1
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    Oct 2019
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    The end of the annual flu

    The medical and scientific communities can't figure out where the flu has gone or why it has virtually disappeared:

    In the Southern Hemisphere, where the flu season happens during our summer months, the WHO data suggests it never took off at all. In Australia, just 14 positive flu cases were recorded in April, compared with 367 during the same month in 2019 – a 96 per cent drop. By June, usually the peak of its flu season, there were none. In fact, Australia has not reported a positive case to the WHO since July.

    In Chile, just 12 cases of flu were detected between April and October. There were nearly 7,000 during the same period in 2019. And in South Africa, surveillance tests picked up just two cases at the beginning of the season, which quickly dropped to zero over the following month – overall, a 99 per cent drop compared with the previous year.
    In the UK, our flu season is only just beginning. But since Covid-19 began spreading in March, just 767 cases have been reported to the WHO compared with nearly 7,000 from March to October last year. And while lab-confirmed flu cases last year jumped by ten per cent between September and October, as a new season gets under way this year they've risen by just 0.7 per cent so far.... Other research by Public Health England has confirmed this. Globally, it is estimated that rates of flu may have plunged by 98 per cent compared with the same time last year.

    'This is real,' says Dr David Strain, senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter Medical School. 'There's no doubt that we're seeing far fewer incidences of flu.'
    So where has flu gone?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...illed-flu.html

    Covid-19 is the flu, obviously. Despite whatever differences there might be between a coronavirus and a rhinovirus, Covid-19 is simply playing the role that the annual flu strain, which is different every year, does. It is a little more dangerous than the normal flu virus, though considerably less dangerous than certain historical strains. Which is why all the lockdown and mask nonsense is now totally pointless, and is merely delaying the natural process of the virus working its way through the population before it finally peters out.

    It wasn't a bad idea to err on the side of caution when the virulence of the disease was unknown. But now we know, so there is no reason to continue being paranoid about it.

  2. #2
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    Mar 2020
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    6,036

    Re: The end of the annual flu

    Quote Originally Posted by Panicattacka View Post
    The medical and scientific communities can't figure out where the flu has gone or why it has virtually disappeared:

    In the Southern Hemisphere, where the flu season happens during our summer months, the WHO data suggests it never took off at all. In Australia, just 14 positive flu cases were recorded in April, compared with 367 during the same month in 2019 – a 96 per cent drop. By June, usually the peak of its flu season, there were none. In fact, Australia has not reported a positive case to the WHO since July.

    In Chile, just 12 cases of flu were detected between April and October. There were nearly 7,000 during the same period in 2019. And in South Africa, surveillance tests picked up just two cases at the beginning of the season, which quickly dropped to zero over the following month – overall, a 99 per cent drop compared with the previous year.
    In the UK, our flu season is only just beginning. But since Covid-19 began spreading in March, just 767 cases have been reported to the WHO compared with nearly 7,000 from March to October last year. And while lab-confirmed flu cases last year jumped by ten per cent between September and October, as a new season gets under way this year they've risen by just 0.7 per cent so far.... Other research by Public Health England has confirmed this. Globally, it is estimated that rates of flu may have plunged by 98 per cent compared with the same time last year.

    'This is real,' says Dr David Strain, senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter Medical School. 'There's no doubt that we're seeing far fewer incidences of flu.'
    So where has flu gone?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...illed-flu.html

    Covid-19 is the flu, obviously. Despite whatever differences there might be between a coronavirus and a rhinovirus, Covid-19 is simply playing the role that the annual flu strain, which is different every year, does. It is a little more dangerous than the normal flu virus, though considerably less dangerous than certain historical strains. Which is why all the lockdown and mask nonsense is now totally pointless, and is merely delaying the natural process of the virus working its way through the population before it finally peters out.

    It wasn't a bad idea to err on the side of caution when the virulence of the disease was unknown. But now we know, so there is no reason to continue being paranoid about it.
    Well that sounds rather interesting, but I still wouldn't jump to conclusions just yet, especially until there's more hard evidence.

    Also remember it's the Daily Fail, whose narratives can often be dubious even at the best of times, and they're probably more likely to be anti- restrictions anyway.

    But I'm still prepared to take it as it comes, especially if the lack of 'normal' flu is fact this year.

    If that's the case, I personally believe it's most likely in spite of Covid rather than because of it, that is with all the Covid-related precautions most of us have been taking since about March, it's highly plausible that it's helped to minimise the risks of being infected with 'normal' flu.

  3. #3
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    Re: The end of the annual flu

    Coronavirus does not equal 'flu virus. They're not the same, only idiots think that.

    The Daily Mail - a source even Wikipedia classes as unreliable.

  4. #4
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    Re: The end of the annual flu

    Quote Originally Posted by Pamplemousse View Post
    Coronavirus does not equal 'flu virus. They're not the same, only idiots think that.

    The Daily Mail - a source even Wikipedia classes as unreliable.
    I did say that all stuff spewed out by the DM must be treated with caution, even though I did dare to have a quick butchers at it.

    There was some rather interesting commentary there, but at least until there's further evidence, whatever that DM article says still needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, especially as to the best of my knowledge, the BBC and others don't appear to have covered it as yet.

  5. #5
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    Re: The end of the annual flu

    Has there been any peer review of the WHO paper quoted?

  6. #6
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    Oct 2019
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    Re: The end of the annual flu

    I'd like to see an estimate of the numbers of children now living in poverty (or will soon be doing so) because their parents lost their jobs to the Covid panic...

    Also the suicides and deaths to cancer, heart disease and other conditions because people couldn't get treatment or were afraid to. The other day when one of my co-workers starting talking about the "rising covid cases" I pointed out that we will never get a count of the people who were killed by the lockdown itself.

    In March, anyone with half a brain understood it was a tradeoff: take an economic hit in exchange for making sure the hospitals could keep up. That's why it was supposed to be temporary, for a few weeks. If they'd told us back then they would be demanding masks and threatening more lockdowns seven months later, no one would have gone along. It's nuts what is happening now.

  7. #7
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    Re: The end of the annual flu

    Quote Originally Posted by Panicattacka View Post
    I'd like to see an estimate of the numbers of children now living in poverty (or will soon be doing so) because their parents lost their jobs to the Covid panic...

    Also the suicides and deaths to cancer, heart disease and other conditions because people couldn't get treatment or were afraid to. The other day when one of my co-workers starting talking about the "rising covid cases" I pointed out that we will never get a count of the people who were killed by the lockdown itself.

    In March, anyone with half a brain understood it was a tradeoff: take an economic hit in exchange for making sure the hospitals could keep up. That's why it was supposed to be temporary, for a few weeks. If they'd told us back then they would be demanding masks and threatening more lockdowns seven months later, no one would have gone along. It's nuts what is happening now.
    You don’t know that so why say it? You can’t tell us what people would and wouldn’t have done. You can tell us what you would’ve done but that is literally only speaking for yourself.

    As for this drivel about SARS-COV2 replacing influenza, what are you talking about? Do you reckon that virology is like a football game and Mother Nature is a coach making tactical substitutions to kill time or something?

    Isn’t it more likely that influenza transmission is reduced due to social distancing, lockdowns and all of the other things in place like mask wearing and hand hygiene? And before you say “well that isn’t reducing Covid transmission”, how do you know it isn’t? We don’t have a yearly set of numbers to compare with Covid as it literally didn’t exist this time last year.

    Coronaviruses and influenza viruses, not rhinoviruses which cause the common cold, are completely different in behaviours and structures. They both cause respiratory infections, but the way in which they do this is completely at odds.

  8. #8
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    Re: The end of the annual flu

    Quote Originally Posted by Gary A View Post

    Isn’t it more likely that influenza transmission is reduced due to social distancing, lockdowns and all of the other things in place like mask wearing and hand hygiene?

    Of course it fvcking is.

  9. #9
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    Re: The end of the annual flu

    Quote Originally Posted by Gary A View Post
    You don’t know that so why say it? You can’t tell us what people would and wouldn’t have done. You can tell us what you would’ve done but that is literally only speaking for yourself.

    As for this drivel about SARS-COV2 replacing influenza, what are you talking about? Do you reckon that virology is like a football game and Mother Nature is a coach making tactical substitutions to kill time or something?

    Isn’t it more likely that influenza transmission is reduced due to social distancing, lockdowns and all of the other things in place like mask wearing and hand hygiene? And before you say “well that isn’t reducing Covid transmission”, how do you know it isn’t? We don’t have a yearly set of numbers to compare with Covid as it literally didn’t exist this time last year.

    Coronaviruses and influenza viruses, not rhinoviruses which cause the common cold, are completely different in behaviours and structures. They both cause respiratory infections, but the way in which they do this is completely at odds.
    I think what you have said in your third paragraph is probably the most plausible explanation for a possible reduction in 'normal' flu cases this year.

    I wonder if cases of the other notorious 'bug' that usually starts doing the rounds from around this time of year onwards (the dreaded Norovirus) might also end up being less this year in spite of Covid and all its precautions and restrictions?

    Once again, I wish you a speedy recovery Gary.

  10. #10
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    Dec 2014
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    Re: The end of the annual flu

    Norovirus: the very definition of "contagious"...

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