4 ms·
Yeah, right, why do we still have a bunch of common cold viruses then? Any argument referring the interventions has to also explain why _only_ flu disappeared o
by shmel 5y ago
Yeah, right, why do we still have a bunch of common cold viruses then? Any argument referring the interventions has to also explain why _only_ flu disappeared out of huge variety of respiratory viruses.
- stan_rogers 5y agoWe're talking about a flu, not the flu. There are still plenty of influenza viruses out there, alive, well, and waiting. The difference with this particular lineage is that it seems to be human-only, with no known animal reservoir.
- rsynnott 5y agoSome of the cold viruses are extremely infectious, certainly moreso than boring ol' Original Covid or Alpha, and some possibly more than Delta. R number for influenza is normally reckoned at well under 1.5; it's really not that infectious. > why _only_ flu disappeared out of huge variety of respiratory viruses. Some of the viruses which cause the common cold may well have become rare or outright disappeared; we probably wouldn't notice. But if you assume that measures are equally effective against flu, cold and covid, you'd probably expect flu to be suppressed first, then ancestral and alpha covid, then most colds, then delta.
- fy20 5y agoCase in point: This summer my family all came down with Norovirus, aka the "winter" vomitting bug. This is much more infectious than COVID, each year infecting roughly 685 million people.