3 ms·
I keep seeing this, but I have a hard time believing Covid is so much more contagious than the flu that it managed to spread like wildfire while the flu ceased
by dmonitor 4y ago
I keep seeing this, but I have a hard time believing Covid is so much more contagious than the flu that it managed to spread like wildfire while the flu ceased to exist in the same timeframe. The entire narrative was that the US was terrible at mitigating the spread of Covid, but if the US was able to mitigate the flu with above and beyond success in that same time period, what anti-flu measures were taken that didn’t effect Covid?
- ceejayoz 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number One person with influenza spreads it to 1.3 people, on average. If mitigation measures bring that below 1.0, it slows down. We may have wiped out some influenza strains entirely (https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/covid-may-have-pushed-a-leading-seasonal-flu-strain-to-extinction/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/covid-may-have-pushe...). One person with COVID's early strain spreads to 2.9 people, and that was with massive societal mitigation measures in place. Omicron's is listed as a whopping 9.5. Some of that likely includes reduced mitigation, but it's still enormous. It's clearly substantially more infectious. Three generations of spread at 1.3 mean ~2 people infected; three generations at 9.5 mean ~850 people.
- oezi 4y agoFlu has a lower R0 and thus is not spreading this quickly. The Flu is/was suppressed by the measures more because its lower R0 was pushed down closer to 1 which prevented any exponential expansion that is commonly happening when people don't care (i.e. don't wear masks, socialize more and are lax about washing their hands).
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]