For the 700th time

gold21

Mon, Dec 21 2020, 6:15 pm

OK guys, just taking a stab at who the Hugger is on this thread..... I'm guessing one of the posters who are sharing nothing confidential or significant but going anonymous anyway. Fun times.

SixOfWands

Mon, Dec 21 2020, 6:18 pm

flowerpower wrote:

I said people that have the flu think they have covid.... too. Maybe that explains why there are suddenly so few cases

People who "think" they have the flu, or "think" they have covid aren't counted in the statistics, of course.

So far in the 2020-2021 flu season, 189.4 million flu vaccines have been distributed in the U.S., compared to 174 million in the 2019-2020 season. So we have a lot more vaccinations, a lot more mask wearing, a lot more social distancing, and a lot fewer places where flu is often spread are open. Add that to people who are loathe to brave the doctor in the midst of a pandemic, and who are thus just toughing out flu, or who assume covid and miss the tamiflu window.

There is moderate flu activity in Oklahoma, BTW.

DH, DD3, DS4 and I have all been vaccinated, although the kids NEVER get the flu vaccine, and I only started last year. Haven't been able to convince DS1 or DD2 yet; they're the college students.

exaustedmom

Mon, Dec 21 2020, 7:24 pm

If doesn't? This season hasp all but disappeared due to masking then how come covid is still spreading the way it is? Either masking works or it doesnt?

gold21

Mon, Dec 21 2020, 8:26 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

OK, but plenty of other viruses are going around. There's a stomach virus going around my neighborhood. My son had it two weeks ago. I caught it this past weekend. I had a really bad cold a few weeks ago. So did my husband. There's plenty of viral activity. I would say it's about the same as any other year. I'm just not hearing about the flu.

So, I don't know.

C'mon we can easily get to the bottom of this, no? Lol.

Are influenza droplets bigger than other viral droplets and therefore protected by mask wearing?

Guys, I mean, come on, we can contribute to the science world, no? From our keyboards. On an anonymous site. Hey, any average person can make a worthwhile contribution. And we are all certified geniuses. It's a prerequisite to becoming a member on this site. Facts.

All the experts were worrying about how bad the conflation of flu season and covid season would be. BH that hasn't come to fruition. Experts don't know everything. (Imamother members, on the other hand, do).

How's the covid activity in Oklahoma? How bad is the flu activity?

My final theory is that the flu vaccine is an excellent match this year. With all the attention on vaccine manufacturers with regards to covid, and with all the money poured into these companies, they finally got it right.

How was the flu cycle in Australia this past season?

Last edited by gold21 on Tue, Dec 22 2020, 12:20 am; edited 3 times in total

amother

Dodgerblue

Mon, Dec 21 2020, 8:33 pm

flowerpower wrote:

I am talking about where there is minimal social distancing. Kids go to school and people go to simchas. Where is the flu in those areas?!!!

Covid picks up many different viruses in their rapids as positive so......

Can you provide a link from a reputable source that says flu would cause a positive covid test?

As an aside, my family unfortunately has gotten flu too many times. We always get it in January or later. I don't think December is going to be peak flu season, especially with everything going on this year.

yksraya

Mon, Dec 21 2020, 11:59 pm

I think many people just stay home and don't go to dr, as many have lost trust after the medical world failed badly during the outbreak march/April. Many just try the natural route as after covid, flu seems rather minor. Or some just are more scared of going to dr as they're scared to get covid from someone ill in waiting room etc.

DrMom

Tue, Dec 22 2020, 12:11 am

gold21 wrote:

C'mon peeps, let's get to the bottom of this.

Are influenza droplets bigger than other viral droplets and therefore protected by mask wearing? Guyssss come on, we can contribute to the science world. Any average person can make a worthwhile contribution. And we are all certified geniuses. Facts. It's a prerequisite to becoming a member on this site.

All the experts were worrying about how bad the conflation of flu season and covid season would be. BH that hasn't come to fruition. Experts don't know everything. (Imamother members, on the other hand, do).

How's the covid activity in Oklahoma? How bad is the flu activity?

My final theory is that the flu vaccine is an excellent match this year. With all the attention on vaccine manufacturers with regards to covid, and with all the money poured into these companies, they finally got it right.

How was the flu cycle in Australia this past season?

Why all the complex theories?

1. Why do you reject the most straightforward theory that masks/SD/reduced gatherings are contributing to reducing flu transmission? This is very straightforward. Why work so hard to formulate alternative theories when we have a perfectly straightforward and logical explanation?

2. There are no "covid droplets" and "flu droplets." These viruses hang around in your spit and mucous and spread via the respiratory droplets that are emitted when you talk, exhale, cough, sneeze. Respiratory droplets are much larger than individual virus particles, whether we are talking about covid or flu viruses.

3. In Brazil, flu was way down this past winter too compared to the previous one. It is not surprising that we are seeing the same phenomenon in the US now that it is winter there.

gold21

Tue, Dec 22 2020, 12:17 am

DrMom wrote:

In response to #1, how would you explain the fact that there is viral activity on par with previous winters, leaving only flu out?

In response to #2, Influenza virus particles have a size of 80–120 nm. Covid particles have a size of 70–90 nm.

In response to #3, thanks for the info, I was curious. How low is low?

gold21

Tue, Dec 22 2020, 12:27 am

OK I looked it up:

This year's flu season in the Southern Hemisphere was weirdly mild.

A surprisingly small number of people in the Southern Hemisphere have gotten the flu this year, probably because the public health measures put in place to fight COVID-19 have also limited the spread of influenza.

That makes public health experts hopeful that the U. S. and other northern countries might be spared the double whammy of COVID-19 and a bad flu season this winter.

Still, they warn against complacency and say people still need to get vaccinated against the flu.

"Because influenza surprises us. Viruses surprise us," says Kanta Subbarao, director of the World Health Organization's Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza in Melbourne, Australia. "We are sort of seeing very little influenza activity in the Southern Hemisphere, but that doesn't allow me to predict that that will be the case for the Northern Hemisphere."

The tropics around the globe's equator can have flu year-round. The temperate zones of the north and south, in contrast, see cases of seasonal influenza rise and peak during the winter.

That means doctors in the Southern Hemisphere typically start seeing flu in May or June. The number of infections there is greatest in July or August. In the Northern Hemisphere, cases start to rise in the fall and peak between December and February.

That's why, as COVID-19 started spreading earlier this year, public health officials in the southern parts of the world worried that their health care systems would soon be overwhelmed. Just when they were expecting to see the normal burden of hospitalizations of seasonal flu, this new respiratory illness could be upon them.

"The countries took it very, very seriously," says Sylvain Aldighieri, the incident manager for COVID-19 with the Pan American Health Organization. "They bought more vaccine, they vaccinated more people during the pre-flu season."

Then they waited for influenza to cases to start rising as usual. They waited ... and waited ... and waited.

"Now we are well advanced during the flu season in the south, and we have not seen any spike, any upsurge of flu," Aldighieri says.

Flu hasn't totally disappeared, but it's way down. For example, he says, consider 3,391 clinical samples that were taken from patients with an acute respiratory illness during a three-week period in the middle of winter in Chile. "Zero were positive for influenza," Aldighieri says, explaining that he'd normally expect to see hundreds test positive for flu.

Chile isn't alone. Other countries are having a similar experience. "Based on what we've seen in the Southern Hemisphere, and I would say this is true of all through the Southern Hemisphere — South America, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, all across this region — there's been very little influenza activity," Subbarao says.

No one can say for sure what's responsible for this unusual flu season, but it seems likely that all the changes in people's movements and behaviors, because of COVID-19, must have played a major role.

"The restriction on travel is a big, big element," says Subbarao, who notes that the mask-wearing, hand-washing and social distancing would also be expected to prevent flu transmission.

Flu researchers say that watching this all play out on the global scale is absolutely fascinating from a scientific point of view, but that no one can rest easy when it comes to influenza, especially in these days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We don't know why this is happening. It's a good thing; we're going to assume it's all of the control measures, but we don't need a major flu epidemic on top of this," says Stacey Schultz-Cherry, a flu researcher at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. "This is one of those years that it is more important than ever to get your flu vaccine."

Scientists usually decide what will go into next year's flu vaccine by studying the strains that are currently circulating and using that data to make predictions. Even though flu cases are oddly low so far, they'll still be able to do that, Schultz-Cherry says.

"I think if it had disappeared completely, we'd be in a very different ballgame. But it hasn't — there's still flu out there," she says, emphasizing that this is exactly why people need to stay vigilant and get vaccinated.

Aldighieri adds, "If the Northern Hemisphere doesn't implement measures comparable to the south, the Northern Hemisphere will be at risk to have a combined epidemic, COVID-19 and influenza."

Already in the U. S., more than 175,000 people have died of COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that in a typical flu season, tens of thousands of people in this country die of influenza.

Last edited by gold21 on Tue, Dec 22 2020, 12:31 am; edited 2 times in total

yksraya

Tue, Dec 22 2020, 12:29 am

It would be a nice phenomenon if covid eradicates the flu... lol

The silver lining perhaps!

gold21

Tue, Dec 22 2020, 12:32 am

yksraya wrote:

It would be a nice phenomenon if covid eradicates the flu... lol

The silver lining perhaps!

Lol, yep. It's really interesting. It's cool.

DrMom

Tue, Dec 22 2020, 12:35 am

gold21 wrote:

In response to #2, Influenza virus particles have a size of 80–120 nm. Covid particles have a size of 70–90 nm.

*Sigh.*

These are the diameters of the individual viruses themselves. The respiratory droplets of saliva and mucous in which they travel are orders of magnitude larger.

gold21

Tue, Dec 22 2020, 12:42 am

DrMom wrote:

*Sigh.*

These are the diameters of the individual viruses themselves. The respiratory droplets of saliva and mucous in which they travel are orders of magnitude larger.

Its not condescending at all to sigh at others. Not at all.

The size of a viral particle is relevant. Why do you suggest that it isn't? *Sigh*.

DrMom

Tue, Dec 22 2020, 1:27 am

gold21 wrote:

The size of a viral particle is relevant. Why do you suggest that it isn't? *Sigh*.

You brought it up. Why? What is your hypothesis?

amother

Chartreuse

Tue, Dec 22 2020, 6:17 am

Maybe it’s a combo: more hand washing and sanitizing kills flu virus and people stay stay home and if sick don’t even call a dr unless need to know /serious
Though who believes anything they read anymore - with good reason

chanchy123

Tue, Dec 22 2020, 7:08 am

yksraya wrote:

It would be a nice phenomenon if covid eradicates the flu... lol

The silver lining perhaps!

I actually read a post by an Israeli scientist (not an immunologist - this was just a hypothesis) that the flu, at least in Israel, may have been eradicated due to COVID measures. If the contagion rate (not sure in translating right from Hebrew) drops from 2, there might not be enough carriers around to spread the disease.
To the posters who asked how other viruses are still going around but not the flu, I’m no immunologist, but I’d guess that they are either more contagious (but maybe not nearly as damaging) or spread in a very different way.
I can’t believe many people are writing off flus as COVID and just not testing.
This is just a suggestion, we have to wait until the end of flu season and see. It would be very cool if this were a result of COVID - very very cool.

gold21

Tue, Dec 22 2020, 7:47 am

DrMom wrote:

You brought it up. Why? What is your hypothesis?

I offered a few already. Cool

I don't want to argue. It was supposed to a light-hearted discussion.

Have a wonderful day.

Last edited by gold21 on Tue, Dec 22 2020, 7:49 am; edited 1 time in total

gold21

Tue, Dec 22 2020, 7:49 am

chanchy123 wrote:

This theory makes sense to me. Thanks for sharing! I guess we will know more at the conclusion of flu season, like you said. (I don't either believe that people are writing off flu as covid and not testing)

amother

Orange

Tue, Dec 22 2020, 7:57 am

exaustedmom wrote:

If doesn't? This season hasp all but disappeared due to masking then how come covid is still spreading the way it is? Either masking works or it doesnt?

I said it before. Its very simple.
The typical masks (non N95) work beautifully to prevent the flu, and are less effective at preventing covid. Still effective, but not to the same degree.
Simply because covid is airborne, and flu is not. They spread differently.

This is really not such a big question, im surprised it got to 3 pages

gold21

Tue, Dec 22 2020, 8:04 am

amother [ Orange ] wrote:

Flu does spread via airborne droplets, though. So is it the droplet size that is different? Is that what you mean?