To evaluate fevers, I've tested dozens of people for flu in recent weeks and only one was positive for flu. Our hospital ER/Lab has had 9 positive flu screens since September, two in the past week. It will be interesting to see how much that grows given the record number of flu vaccines, the ~ 50% of people wearing masks properly and the distancing measures.


ADDENDUM 11/20/2020 (Not sure I've seen a state go from such a high level to minimal so quickly. Not sure as to why this is the case. There are several potential explanations but It would presumptuous to speculate as to why. Has anyone else heard any explanation?)

ADDENDUM 12/1/2020:

ADDENDUM 12/19/2020:
Saw a few cases of influenza this past week, but overall not too bad... I hope that trend holds. One of my partners and I were speculating on whether or not we will see a late flu season in March-April as more people are vaccinated for Covid and as some of mitigation efforts for Covid are relaxed. With us being 6 months removed from many people getting flu vaccines and with little natural seasonal immunity due to low numbers of flu cases to date it will be interesting to see what happens...

Aggies2009 said:

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So where did you get that? Eyeball test at a Wal Mart?

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Yes, this past Tuesday. Disappointed to see it.

How accurate are flu tests?

And yet they still have a flu season. And then it's gone.

I asked this early, but how accurate are the flu tests?

Didn't you say on here you doubted the effectiveness of cloth masks?

maybe

I honestly don't think masking is going to save us through the winter

can't hurt might help

AgE Doc said:

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ORAggieFan said:

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Didn't you say on here you doubted the effectiveness of cloth masks?

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No.

Double layered high thread count cloth masks have performed better than lower thread count single layer masks at limiting respiratory droplet spread. But I'd recommend either over nothing.

I prefer and routinely use the disposable surgical quality mask that you can find at Walmart and other grocery stores and pharmacies.

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My bad, it was Kid Doc.

Was at a soccer tournament this weekend with my kids. Other than the players, mask usage was in the high 90% rate. Those that weren't in masks were dozens of yards away from anyone else. My guess is that those folks chose to sit away from others so they could go maskless.

Don't recall seeing anyone in the more crowded areas not wearing a mask.

This was in Central Texas.


Not a medical expert but skeptical of effectiveness in an outdoor setting but willing to do it if it helps even a little bit.

KlinkerAg11 said:

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How accurate are flu tests?

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This is a great question many don't ask (and fewer understand). Typically, the package inserts compare themselves to another test (how they got FDA clearance to market it). This is problematic as it's often comparing "poor" vs. "poor." Most rapid flu tests are only about 50 percent sensitive, and around 80 percent specific.

Ultimately, it's of limited utility, though. Unless it's actually strep, and the patient needs antibiotics, tamiflu etc. don't really do that much.

Back to the point, one can check out pandata.org and various other organizations to understand even level 5 lockdowns have had...zero impact on covid.

KlinkerAg11 said:

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I asked this early, but how accurate are the flu tests?

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COVID test are better.

Keegan99 said:

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One possibility is viral interference.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(20)30114-2/fulltext

"These findings show that one respiratory virus can block infection with another through stimulation of antiviral defences in the airway mucosa, supporting the idea that interference from rhinovirus disrupted the 2009 IAV pandemic in Europe. These results indicate that viral interference can potentially affect the course of an epidemic, and this possibility should be considered when designing interventions for seasonal influenza epidemics and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic."

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That's actually pretty fascinating. We had a huge rhinovirus outbreak in August/September and had almost no COVID out here. It wasn't until that cleared up that COVID spread like wildfire. Correlation /= causation, but that article makes it seem like a possibility. It would also explain the sporadic regional outbreaks a lot better than any other data point I know.

As far as the OP, we're all hoping for a mild flu season. Australia and the southern hemisphere in general had the mildest flu season in recorded history. Whether it's a good vaccine, social distancing, masks, hand washing or whatever is anyone's guess.

agforlife97 said:

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deadbq03 said:

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Keegan99 said:

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Flu has effectively disappeared around the globe. Over a 95% drop. Closer to 98%, generally.

This is regardless of NPIs.

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And to me this speaks to the efficacy of the measures that reduce COVID transmission. To me, there's no question that they're effective.

Whether they're necessary or not is certainly up to debate and historical scrutiny, but in my mind there's zero question of the efficacy.

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I'm not sure about that. Covid is more transmissible than Flu is. It appears that Covid is killing people who would have otherwise died from flu or pneumonia. F&P deaths are at near zero right now, which indicates that reporting current covid deaths without this context is misleading. Also, if you look at current covid deaths plus F+P deaths, and compare this to what the expected death rate would be for 2020 pre-covid, then you can get a sense for what the lockdown attributable deaths are. And it appears that right now lockdown deaths are roughly the same as covid deaths.

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Kids are largely unaffected by Covid so pediatric statistics ought to be an outstanding measure to use.

So far, there have been zero pediatric flu deaths this year. It's early in the season (Week 45), so it'd be irresponsible to draw a conclusion from this yet, but in each of the past 3 years we've had a handful of deaths by this point. It'll be interesting to see what this chart looks like in a few months.



Were you trying to say that Covid + Flu + Pneumonia deaths is relatively the same this year as F + P in other years?



Source: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm

Why are masks so effective at preventing the flu but so poor with covid? If it's is mass usage and distancing preventing the flu, shouldn't it be preventing covid spread? I realize it's novel and some of us may have more pre-existing immunity to flu strains, but not at the rate we're seeing the reduction in.

If as the OP mentioned, mask usage is overall poor (due to fit, improper wearing, removing, etc) then that would be a problem for both the flu and covid.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Keegan99 said:

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One possibility is viral interference.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(20)30114-2/fulltext

"These findings show that one respiratory virus can block infection with another through stimulation of antiviral defences in the airway mucosa, supporting the idea that interference from rhinovirus disrupted the 2009 IAV pandemic in Europe. These results indicate that viral interference can potentially affect the course of an epidemic, and this possibility should be considered when designing interventions for seasonal influenza epidemics and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic."

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That's actually pretty fascinating. We had a huge rhinovirus outbreak in August/September and had almost no COVID out here. It wasn't until that cleared up that COVID spread like wildfire. Correlation /= causation, but that article makes it seem like a possibility. It would also explain the sporadic regional outbreaks a lot better than any other data point I know.

As far as the OP, we're all hoping for a mild flu season. Australia and the southern hemisphere in general had the mildest flu season in recorded history. Whether it's a good vaccine, social distancing, masks, hand washing or whatever is anyone's guess.

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All of this is true. It's an interesting theory that covid prevalence, combined with social distancing (note, this is not akin to lockdowns), plus generally better sanitation (hand washing etc.) have very significantly decreased influenza's presence.

It's always present so I am not sure I am using that word correctly, but it is not as prevalent now, certainly throughout the northern hemisphere, as it would normally be ramping up. Interference is the best guess, imho.

Another poster commented that flu strains germinate/originate in SE Asia annually and I've never seen such documentation. It's present in all human populations globally and mutates very rapidly everywhere. It takes 6 months to produce it in quantities and has a predictable annual frequency so we generally use the previous cycle's strains (from the southern hemisphere) for our northern hemisphere quadrivalent vaccine.