Maybe the flu is taking a lesson from cicadas?
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Do we even know if the flu needs to be imported to island nations? Can it drop to zero during the off-season?
If nothing else the “season” part of the seasonal flu is hemisphere dependent. So there must be a lot of importing at the start of the season, but how much?
Highly doubtful. The flu is endemic, it just resides in a much smaller population group in the offseason and then when conditions are right spreads. That’s why some people get summer flu’s.
Yeah, I said “zero”, I guess I meant: “very-low”. So low that the growth-curve wouldn’t reach a significant amount without imports. As in, I want more data.
Probably worth adding that, as far as I can tell, every nation did do some social distancing, mask wearing, and ‘lock-down’. It’s just the island nations eased up.
To what degree are places really “independent” with respect to large flu outbreaks though?
I don’t know a lot about this topic, but I’ve always imagined the flu was somewhat like a wave sweeping through the world. To stop outbreaks, maybe you don’t necessarily have to stop the wave everywhere. If there are enough barriers in enough places, then maybe you prevent a lot of the flu on a worldwide basis.
Also, how much do people really have to modify their behavior to stop large flu outbreaks? Maybe not so much, so that even in areas without lockdowns, better hand washing and separation of those with symptoms slowed things down.
Not quite sure. I’ve watched “FluView” in the past, which focuses only on the U.S., of course:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm
In prior years, I’ve seen geographic spread… just like I saw with COVID (the three waves in U.S.: Detroit, New Orleans, and then centered on NYC in spring 2020; across south in summer 2020; and everywhere for winter 2020-2021).
It doesn’t seem to matter what official policy is. It’s more a question of how many people are inside in dry air. Maybe improved air filtration will help.
Anyway, let me grab a screenshot from FluView:
The 2009-2010 grey curve was the H1N1 pandemic. Note they picked recent seasons, plus specific “bad” flu years for comparison.
Yes. Masks/distancing/“lockdowns” have helped, but the #1 reason for the low flu is the lack of international travel IMO.
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It seems the level of covid19 infections was too low at the time of flu reduction for viral interference to be the reason. International travel could be a big flu driver. I also wonder if flu has a higher surface transmission rate than covid’s.
What the CDC calls ILI (Influenza Like Illness - fever, cough, sore throat, etc) is back with a vengeance. It looks like it is running wild is the southeastern US right now. Assuming it is a combination of colds, RSV, and flu.
I live in the midwest and both of my kids say 5-10 kids are missing from their classes the last week or so. My son’s basketball team has only had 4/5/6 kids out of 9 at practice for the last 2 weeks as the sickness moves through the team. One of my kids missed 3 days of school two weeks ago. The other kids will be missing her 3rd straight day tomorrow (and her dance company shut down for this week to try to curb the transmission).
Both have passed multiple Covid tests (and we all had Covid at the end of August and it was was more mild then whatever they got recently). Looking at our community wastewater data, Covid has been coming down for months and is currently as low as it has been since mid-April.
A couple weeks ago my whole nuclear family got RSV which wasn’t fun, and then this past weekend a stomach bug has gone through us one by one. This time of year tends to have us getting at least something.
Mr aj said his bus has been pretty full of sniffling coughing kids, and he skipped a weekend fishing trip bc he was feeling under the weather. (Covid negative.) I reminded him to get a flu shot.
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Like 3 years of flu in one season.
Dang I’m glad Mr aj finally got his flu shot. Need to remind my daughter.
Pretty sure I have flu now, it’s quite unpleasant, and I got my shot back in early November…
I’m sick again. Not very sick.
I think 8/10 people in the home office are also sick.
Fun times.
Christmas is a real pain in the ass when you’re trying not to give other people the flu
No in-laws and wear a mask around your family at home. (It sucked at Thanksgiving when I had to isolate with covid.)
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