6 ms·

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

by yosito 6y ago

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 6y ago
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/1381918586348822531?s=21 https://twitter.com/thainewsreports/status/13819185863488225...
- yosito 6y ago
  > 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?
  - Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 6y ago
    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.
  - nickysielicki 6y ago
    Probably not.
  - PeterisP 6y ago
    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 6y ago
      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.
  - cimi_ 6y ago
    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.
  - bitexploder 6y ago
    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 6y ago
      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 6y ago
        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.
  - BurningFrog 6y ago
    My guess is it had an effect for a few hours that day.
  - da_big_ghey 6y ago
    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/infdis/jiaa274/5841129 https://academic.oup.com/jid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/inf... so maybe not so efective.
- al3xandre 6y ago
  Some more of these fun photo ops: https://twitter.com/thainewsreports/status/1388698457657905152?s=21 https://twitter.com/thainewsreports/status/13886984576579051...
georgeplusplus 6y ago
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.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ancientworldnow 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    Similar sized virus, respiratory and seasonal. Plenty of similarities.
- smolder 6y ago
  Influenza is not a coronavirus.
- PEJOE 6y ago
  Influenza is not a coronavirus
- deelowe 6y ago
  ...
  - georgeplusplus 6y ago
    “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!
cblconfederate 6y ago
probably the school closings were the largest contributor
- caturopath 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    > 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.
    - caturopath 6y ago
      The CDC reports at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/transmission_k_12_schools.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/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.
    - anoncake 6y ago
      Aka the group that has to suffer the most from lockdowns while benefitting the least.
wozer 6y ago
They didn't do that in Germany, but the flu disappeared here, too.
caturopath 6y ago
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.
failwhaleshark 6y ago
Sanitation theater is helpful in the sense that it calms certain people's anxieties, much like a placebo pill does.
fidesomnes 6y ago
> 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 6y ago
  Considering that one year ago the general advice was not to bother with masks, this would be a surprising 360.
  - Karunamon 6y ago
    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 6y ago
  [deleted]
opencl 6y ago
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/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6121424/
- yosito 6y ago
  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.
andreygrehov 6y ago
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/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7680614/
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  Find a more credible source. https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-stanford-masks/fact-check-journal-article-questioning-effectiveness-of-masks-against-covid-19-is-not-a-stanford-university-study-idUSL1N2MJ1UD 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 6y ago
    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 6y ago
      The Forbes assertions are trivially confirmed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15325026/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15325026/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18434036/ 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.
taeric 6y ago
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.

by yosito 6y ago

al3xandre 6y ago

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/1381918586348822531?s=21 https://twitter.com/thainewsreports/status/13819185863488225...

yosito 6y ago
> 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?
- Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 6y ago
  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.
- nickysielicki 6y ago
  Probably not.
- PeterisP 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    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.
- cimi_ 6y ago
  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.
- bitexploder 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    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 6y ago
      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.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  My guess is it had an effect for a few hours that day.
- da_big_ghey 6y ago
  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/infdis/jiaa274/5841129 https://academic.oup.com/jid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/inf... so maybe not so efective.
al3xandre 6y ago
Some more of these fun photo ops: https://twitter.com/thainewsreports/status/1388698457657905152?s=21 https://twitter.com/thainewsreports/status/13886984576579051...

georgeplusplus 6y ago

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.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ancientworldnow 6y ago
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 6y ago
  Similar sized virus, respiratory and seasonal. Plenty of similarities.
smolder 6y ago
Influenza is not a coronavirus.
PEJOE 6y ago
Influenza is not a coronavirus
deelowe 6y ago
...
- georgeplusplus 6y ago
  “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!

cblconfederate 6y ago

probably the school closings were the largest contributor

caturopath 6y ago
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 6y ago
  > 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.
  - caturopath 6y ago
    The CDC reports at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/transmission_k_12_schools.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/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.
  - anoncake 6y ago
    Aka the group that has to suffer the most from lockdowns while benefitting the least.

wozer 6y ago

They didn't do that in Germany, but the flu disappeared here, too.

caturopath 6y ago

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.

failwhaleshark 6y ago

Sanitation theater is helpful in the sense that it calms certain people's anxieties, much like a placebo pill does.

fidesomnes 6y ago

> 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 6y ago
Considering that one year ago the general advice was not to bother with masks, this would be a surprising 360.
- Karunamon 6y ago
  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 6y ago
[deleted]

opencl 6y ago

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/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6121424/

yosito 6y ago
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.

andreygrehov 6y ago

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/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7680614/

ceejayoz 6y ago
Find a more credible source. https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-stanford-masks/fact-check-journal-article-questioning-effectiveness-of-masks-against-covid-19-is-not-a-stanford-university-study-idUSL1N2MJ1UD 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 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    The Forbes assertions are trivially confirmed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15325026/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15325026/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18434036/ 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.

taeric 6y ago

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.