9 ms·
2020 has been a year without a flu season in the southern hemisphere
- sharemywin 6y agobecause masks work and social distancing works.
- ghiculescu 6y agoNobody is really doubting that. The question is, is shutting down the country to avoid flu season a good trade off (in more normal times)?
- spankalee 6y agoThat's not actually a question anyone is asking.
- rileyteige 6y agoThere are many out there for whom it may not be worth it.
- fwn 6y agoAt least in the German mainstream discourse the proportionality of specific policies as well as it's costs and benefits are reoccuring, if not central themes. This is, of course, currently about covid-19, but I think that the political arguments mostly apply to infectious diseases in general. ..once they gain a certain significance. I don't doubt your perception though. The discourse might vary greatly between countries, languages, etc.
- m_eiman 6y agoNo need to shut down the country to practice social distancing, though.
- missedthecue 6y agoYou'd restrict an enormous amount of commerce.
- spaetzleesser 6y agoI don’t think so. People are very good at adapting once confronted with a situation.
- whateveracct 6y agoWearing a mask in public doesn't restrict any commerce Social distancing restricts some, but even without any legal enforcement I wouldn't be surprised if people just don't want to be close to others like before anymore. And for perfectly acceptable reasons!
- jefft255 6y agoI, for one, wouldn't support practicing social distancing every year to prevent the flu season. And this always has economic effects as well.
- michaelbuckbee 6y agoWell there's negative economic effects to the flu in any case. There's a variety of relatively low cost preventable steps that would just help in general if people followed them (may or may not fit your definition of social distancing). I'm thinking of stuff like - Contactless payments - Head nods instead of handshakes for greetings - More remote work options (where applicable). - Mask wearing on public transit or by people with lots of personal contact
- chundicus 6y agoDepends what your metrics are, but very likely no. Even if you could prove it was a "good trade off", good luck convincing anyone. In America we're seeing how stubborn people are to take any actual steps against a deadly virus, they would absolutely scoff at any intrusive measure meant to prevent the flu.
- kgwgk 6y agoSaying "nobody" may be putting to much faith on your fellow humans.
- wobbly_bush 6y agoWill this have a lasting impact on the spread of the viruses or it's only limited to the time when people are wearing masks and practicing physical distancing?
- macintux 6y agoEven if we managed to shut down the world simultaneously, the viruses can linger in animals, so we’d presumably eventually be back to where we are today.
- phalangion 6y agoMy hope is that, at least for some portion of society, this pandemic has normalized the practice of wearing a mask if you must go out and are sick. So even if diseases aren't totally eradicated, we can have significant reductions in spread. Maybe a false hope, but a hope nonetheless.
- DanBC 6y ago> has normalized the practice of wearing a mask if you must go out and are sick This is one of the reasons people who are against mask wearing are against mask wearing - they encourage people to break the rules that we have good evidence for (self isolation) in favour of rules we have weak evidence for (mask wearing). Please do not go out and about if you have symptoms. That mask isn't doing much to prevent the spread of your disease.
- majormajor 6y ago> Please do not go out and about if you have symptoms. This is hardly a rule that anyone follows, unless symptoms are severe. That's one of the reasons COVID spreads more widely than the flu - mild symptoms don't make anyone change behavior.
- basch 6y agoThat should be a call to arms for governments to build better support systems for the sick and elderly, so they can receive care and supplies at home. Maybe Amazon and Wal-mart will fill that need, maybe not. It would be nice to have a "im sick" button that auto delivers some chicken soup.
- perlpimp 6y agobecause R0 covid is 2 - 6 where flu is 1.4 < any measures made for corona would stop it dead in its tracks. for posterity's sake here is a picture with ranges: https://cdn.the-scientist.com/assets/articleNo/67690/iImg/38474/uploads/what%20is%20r.png https://cdn.the-scientist.com/assets/articleNo/67690/iImg/38...
- bsimpson 6y agoThe image is transparent. Here's the same link wrapped in HTML so you can read it: data:text/html,<img src="https://cdn.the-scientist.com/assets/articleNo/67690/iImg/38474/uploads/what%20is%20r.png" style="max-width:100vw;max-height:100vh;"/> Also, I don't see the annual flu on that graph.
- fersarr 6y agoCould it also be that due to all the attention that Covid gets and the saturation of the health infrastructure, no one is bothering noting down the normal flu numbers in those countries?
- hannob 6y agoIf anything probably the opposite. You're much more likely to get medical treatment if you have some "undefined respiratory symptoms" right now, and doctors will usually try to find out if you have covid or something else.
- TYPE_FASTER 6y agoIf anything, I would think the data quality of temperature and respiratory issues at the time of patient intake would be higher.
- unreal37 6y agoThe article itself is behind a paywall, so this might have been in the text. But... could that be explained by all respiratory illnesses being called "covid" this year? The numbers are simply hiding in another graph?
- nuclearnice1 6y agoFrom the article > In the first two weeks of August, the who processed nearly 200,000 influenza tests, and found just 46 were positive. In a typical year, the number would be closer to 3,500. So sounds like this is based on a test, making misclassification unlikely to be the root cause?
- r721 6y agoUnpaywalled: https://archive.is/VEQl7 https://archive.is/VEQl7
- tmaly 6y agoCould it also be that they are counting flu as something else? I am reminded of this quote from Demolition Man "In the future all restaurants are Taco Bell"
- Anon84 6y agoYep, there's a fair amount of overlap between CoVID and the usual ILI, with CoVID being misdiagnosed resulting in things like this: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/#S2 https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/#S2 where the US either had the worst flu season in decades... or undiagnosed CoVID deaths.
- addicted 6y agoThe flu test results are way lower. So it’s most likely under counted COVID deaths if we were to apply the Australian results to the US.
- Majromax 6y ago> Could it also be that they are counting flu as something else? The article raises that question, but it does not reach this conclusion. In particular, it states: >> [In the six countries with robust data] the total number of influenza tests has fallen by just 20%, while the share of tests that have come up positive has plummeted to record lows. It appears to be a legitimate effect.
- mieses 6y agoThe UK'S Office of National Statistics (ONS) just showed that since June, UK influenza deaths are higher than Covid deaths. If this is true, then wearing masks has no effect on deaths from airborne viral transmission. And it might explain why The Economist is trying to shift the narrative. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/latest https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
- jedberg 6y agoI didn't want to jinx it, but no one in my family has had even a sniffle since March. And I have a 3 and 5 year old. Usually the sniffles don't stop. I would love it if after this is over, masks were required in public from say Nov 1 to Mar 1. No shutdown or anything, bars and clubs can be open, etc, go eat and drink, whatever. But when walking around or waiting for your food, have a mask on.
- noozirul 6y agoyeah sure. and lets build some camps for the sick ones.
- colechristensen 6y agoYour immune system evolved in an environment where it has stuff to do constantly, when it doesn’t have stuff to do it gets bored and finds stuff to do... from the mild inconvenience of allergies to deadly autoimmune diseases. And when it comes down to it, government doesn’t have the authority to tell you what to wear in public, inside a business during a pandemic probably, but regularly? You’re going to find some real solid constitutional objections that are better off not tested.
- maxerickson 6y agoWe literally make people wear clothes. Especially women.
- 6y ago
- noozirul 6y agoobviously we know why. they count the flu as covid. just like in the us where you can get funding by classifying a death as covid.
- heavyset_go 6y agoThis is the healthiest I've been in a long time because of social distancing.
- chrisjs96 6y agoIt's not healthy long term though because humans have to exchange bacteria and get sick.
- phaemon 6y agoThat is such an appalling misunderstanding of...everything, that I can only suggest you read a book. For you, I recommend "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" and work your way up from there.
- chrisjs96 6y agoLet me recommend something to you. It's called Autoimmune diseases. Good luck
- phaemon 6y ago"They're called". You can't even get your insult right in text?
- dang 6y agoWould you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and also stop breaking the site guidelines? You've been doing both of those things a lot, unfortunately. But you've also posted good (for HN) comments. If you'd stick to the latter, we'd be grateful. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- phaemon 6y agoFair point. I think I'll take a short break from commenting as clearly I'm getting a bit snappy.