4 ms·

Exactly. If you renamed flu to FLU-21, did extensive testing for the flu (doesn't really matter how reliable the tests are), you'd have a pandemic every year.

greiskul 5y ago
Well, the flu only used to kill like 34k people a year in the US. Covid killed over 10 times more, in a population where a significant portion of it was doing social isolation, wearing masks, etc. So yes, maybe you can call flu a pandemic, but don't compare it to Covid after everything the world as seen in the past year.
Fomite 5y ago
This isn't true. The definition for a flu epidemic is two standard deviations above the expected cases for influenza that year, as estimated by a Serfling-type regression model using a negative binomial distribution. Influenza just doesn't breach that barrier for more than a few weeks most years, and rarely in widespread geographic areas at once. Compare that to SARS-CoV-2, where the expected number of cases is zero. "Epidemic" means something more than "Lots".
- anoncake 5y ago
  Then that definition is garbage. How bad a disease is does not depend on how bad you expect it to be.
  - Fomite 5y ago
    "Epidemic" isn't "Is a disease bad?". It's "Is this disease occurring at a level above expected?" You can have very serious endemic diseases - malaria is one example. But "Occurring to a level above expected" is an important piece of information all its own - for example, five cases of Smallpox, while only five cases, is something of an emergency, whereas five cases of influenza is not a serious crisis.
    - anoncake 5y ago
      Yes, that's the technical definition, which no layperson cares about.
      - Fomite 5y ago
        The comment I was replying to was talking about renaming diseases, doing extensive testing, and declaring a pandemic. That's all based on the people who would use the technical definition.
travisp 5y ago
This is just wrong. Vastly more tests were done for the flu during the covid pandemic than have ever been done.
- daddylongstroke 5y ago
  This is absolutely wrong. Labs in all the largest cities in the US, simply stopped accepting samples for anything other than COVID. Source: wife is RN working as triage nurse and interacting daily with the largest testing sites in NY, CA, NJ, IL, etc.etc.etc.
  - travisp 5y ago
    > And the decline has not been because of a lack of testing. Since late September, 1.3 million specimens have been tested for influenza, more than the average of about one million in the same period in recent years. Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/22/science/flu-season-coronavirus-pandemic.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/22/science/flu-s... My wife is also an ER doctor and agrees that there were times that they didn't perform many/any flu tests--mostly in the spring of 2020 and after none of the flu tests were returning positive for a while. But this past winter people have definitely been tested for the flu. Rapid influenza tests are also usually performed first, only sending to labs when confirmatory testing is desired.
    - daddylongstroke 5y ago
      Hmmm, interesting. Wonder what the source of this 1.3 million flu tests is. It makes no sense. Why would doctors send off flu labs to such a statistically higher degree, in a year when they're not seeing any flu?

greiskul 5y ago

Well, the flu only used to kill like 34k people a year in the US. Covid killed over 10 times more, in a population where a significant portion of it was doing social isolation, wearing masks, etc. So yes, maybe you can call flu a pandemic, but don't compare it to Covid after everything the world as seen in the past year.

Fomite 5y ago

This isn't true. The definition for a flu epidemic is two standard deviations above the expected cases for influenza that year, as estimated by a Serfling-type regression model using a negative binomial distribution. Influenza just doesn't breach that barrier for more than a few weeks most years, and rarely in widespread geographic areas at once. Compare that to SARS-CoV-2, where the expected number of cases is zero. "Epidemic" means something more than "Lots".

anoncake 5y ago
Then that definition is garbage. How bad a disease is does not depend on how bad you expect it to be.
- Fomite 5y ago
  "Epidemic" isn't "Is a disease bad?". It's "Is this disease occurring at a level above expected?" You can have very serious endemic diseases - malaria is one example. But "Occurring to a level above expected" is an important piece of information all its own - for example, five cases of Smallpox, while only five cases, is something of an emergency, whereas five cases of influenza is not a serious crisis.
  - anoncake 5y ago
    Yes, that's the technical definition, which no layperson cares about.
    - Fomite 5y ago
      The comment I was replying to was talking about renaming diseases, doing extensive testing, and declaring a pandemic. That's all based on the people who would use the technical definition.

travisp 5y ago

This is just wrong. Vastly more tests were done for the flu during the covid pandemic than have ever been done.

daddylongstroke 5y ago
This is absolutely wrong. Labs in all the largest cities in the US, simply stopped accepting samples for anything other than COVID. Source: wife is RN working as triage nurse and interacting daily with the largest testing sites in NY, CA, NJ, IL, etc.etc.etc.
- travisp 5y ago
  > And the decline has not been because of a lack of testing. Since late September, 1.3 million specimens have been tested for influenza, more than the average of about one million in the same period in recent years. Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/22/science/flu-season-coronavirus-pandemic.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/22/science/flu-s... My wife is also an ER doctor and agrees that there were times that they didn't perform many/any flu tests--mostly in the spring of 2020 and after none of the flu tests were returning positive for a while. But this past winter people have definitely been tested for the flu. Rapid influenza tests are also usually performed first, only sending to labs when confirmatory testing is desired.
  - daddylongstroke 5y ago
    Hmmm, interesting. Wonder what the source of this 1.3 million flu tests is. It makes no sense. Why would doctors send off flu labs to such a statistically higher degree, in a year when they're not seeing any flu?