No flu season anywhere in the world this year ...

[Dustyboots]

Christina Pagel (alternative SAGE) has just said this on Newsnight. She says there's been no flu season anywhere in the world this year because of Covid restrictions etc

Does anyone else know whether this is the case?

She was suggesting that if we kept restrictions up we could eliminate Covid and in the future eliminate most things, therefore reducing deaths forever!

I think she's a bit potty.

Here in Aus the winter flu season was virtually non-existent. This is widely accepted to be because of both COVID measures, and a greater than usual uptake of flu vaccine early in the season.

So hand washing/sanitising, social distancing, and a much greater awareness of not going out or to work or school with a cold/cough. These measures could all be easily implemented every year without much disruption at all.

I do hope now that remote working has been somewhat normalised this is the end of going to work with cold symptoms. I used to think it’s best to drag myself in and then leave midday if still feeling unwell. Last time I had flu I caught it at our office Christmas lunch from a colleague who’d just returned from a work trip overseas and said he had a sore throat midway through the meal

I think it’s great that it’s no longer social acceptable to go to work with a ‘cold’ or an ‘upset tummy’ and I hoe that if anything stays. I’m one of those unfortunate people who catches everything going, and because I have quite bad asthma I end up on steroids at least twice a year. This is the first year I can remember with no steroids and no hospital visit or an asthma flare.

It makes perfect sense that masks, social distancing and travel restrictions would cut flu, norovirus and rotavirus transmission. Even countries with limited distancing have had travel restrictions imposed, and have had higher rates of working from home.

@Jgdgjbdssvuuuuu

“It's a completely different virus”

That’s your opinion

It’s not an opinion though. It’s a fact. They are completely different viruses with a different structure and different genetic sequence. I hope your 9 year old gets taught some proper science at school one day.

I don’t actually think I have seen anyone with a common cold this winter!

There is a spectrum of ‘overwhelm’. Every year the NHS gets super busy in winter with flu etc. but we’re not routinely in the situation we are now where routine care is cancelled and HCPs having breakdowns due to over work, death rates etc. for a year in duration at a time

If you want to believe that’s all the same that’s up to you. There’s a world of difference in my book.

it's easy enough to imagine a Great Dane and a chihuahua are both dogs but they have very different characteristics in both the way they look and behave. Think of viruses like different breeds of dogs (or any analogy you like. It's enough to understand they are a different group)

I like it!

@Heatheronthehill

Surely there would be over population issues if there were no deaths from any virus?!

Not if it's illegal to meet new people, childless couples fear being stuck homeschooling forever, and everyone else is feeling unsexy from prolonged over- exposure!

@ChocOrange1

I hope the government aren't pressured into lockdowns or other restrictions each year, to prevent deaths from flu and covid.

I doubt it. The restrictions for covid have been ridiculously expensive and the cost vs benefit for your average amount of flu admissions/fatalities doesn’t work out. It’s cheaper to expand healthcare provision (not that any government for the last twenty years has taken that view).

It was as recently as 2018 that was particularly bad for flu with 50,000 deaths attributed those strains. It’s important to remember most people have no idea about the death rate of flu and we have no real prevention programmes other than the vaccine. Covid managed close to that in a matter of weeks back in March/April 20 with extreme measures being implemented.

If covid can be controlled with vaccines to maintain similar numbers then it’s not so much of a problem. Back to my earlier point though, to accommodate an extra numbers healthcare will need to be invested in. I’m pretty sure that the reason no government has spent the money is because no one would have been convinced by the need or value for money previously because it hadn’t affected them. The public appetite wasn’t there.

I think it was the swine flu when they temporarily raised the self-signed sick period from 7 to 14 days. That’s the most dramatic flu measure I’ve can remember previous to this.

@turnitonagain

I do hope now that remote working has been somewhat normalised this is the end of going to work with cold symptoms. I used to think it’s best to drag myself in and then leave midday if still feeling unwell. Last time I had flu I caught it at our office Christmas lunch from a colleague who’d just returned from a work trip overseas and said he had a sore throat midway through the meal

Agree with that. And with being like Japan, where anyone who has to go on a train with a but of a cough or sniff will always wear a mask.

Other than that I'm very ready to get out and about though, as soon as safely possible...

To me it’s pretty obvious the current measures are very good at preventing flu viruses as they are not as transmissible (as covid) and population have some immunity, whereas covid is more transmissible and population have less/no immunity. Also the change in mindset of if you’re ill you don’t go to work rather than the martyr attitude (government/companies needs to overhaul sick pay). If the current measures:hand washing, masks and 1m plus rule is positive for health these measures should be adopted during the winter months.

@KeepWashingThoseHands

There is a spectrum of ‘overwhelm’. Every year the NHS gets super busy in winter with flu etc. but we’re not routinely in the situation we are now where routine care is cancelled and HCPs having breakdowns due to over work, death rates etc. for a year in duration at a time

If you want to believe that’s all the same that’s up to you. There’s a world of difference in my book.

Did you even read the article? It was not a typical yearly occurrence.

Similar stuff happened in the US that year too but it’s the flu so nobody cared

@Jgdgjbdssvuuuuu

“It's a completely different virus”

That’s your opinion

No. It’s a fact.

@Dullardmullard

So we’ve all been a bunch of manky sods because before we didn’t wash our hands or surfaces enough.

Flu is still there as covid will be, it isn’t gone it’s waiting so to speak.

To the scientists, Question how come they change the flu jab every year with a variation as flu changes all the time it’s a virus after all but say the new variation of covid the jab can stay the same and work. There is now three mutation/variation. Surely we need a new vaccine or variation of.

Ehm.... practically, yes.

@CurlyhairedAssassin

Can’t we just mute the people who played truant from biology class?

Yes please. Someone on here is showing themselves up in spectacular fashion.

@Jgdgjbdssvuuuuu

“It's a completely different virus”

That’s your opinion

It’s a fact, not an opinion.

NHS is geared up for flu season, and schedules elective work round expected admissions. It hasn't ever before needed to stop elective work across the board.

'Typical' flu season causes up to 17k deaths in UK, so preparations for that just don't stand up to the scale of disease and death this virus is causungm

My favourite uneducated view is that Covid came alone and bumped off all the people who would normally catch flu and end up in hospital.
The rest took the flu vaccine this year and didn’t catch it.
Leaving the flu to circulate amongst those of us who can catch it but stay at home and recover without talking to anyone. It’s not been eradicated, it’s just not ending up in hospital.

But then what I know about virology could be written on a fag packet and have room left over.

My viewpoint is only subjective and based on my limited personal experience. However, it does seem that flu hasn't been an issue in the UK this year as in other years.

I think many more people took the flu vaccination this time round because of the dire warnings about dealing with COVID and the flu at the same time...I took the vaccination myself for the first time as did many of my friends and colleagues.

Secondly, I have worked in schools for years (non-teaching) and the amount of coughs, colds and flu which are passed around between children is high. With masks, social distancing and intermittent lockdowns, this has been reduced.

I also think there is a huge amount of transmission between people out and about, eg. public transport, supermarkets, busy pubs and restaurants. All the cleaning, sanitising, wearing masks, fewer people on transport has meant we aren't transmitting the flu so much, and thus it hasn't spread as normal.

I agree that for COVID to still be spreading in such conditions makes it far more dangerous and more transmissible than any other virus, including the flu.

@Jgdgjbdssvuuuuu

“It's a completely different virus”

That’s your opinion

No.... I think you'll find that it's fact

If we as a society could do more to choose to reduce those “normal” deaths, would we? As in: if we can reduce tens of thousands of deaths to hundreds by strict measures, would we chose to reduce tens of thousands to, say, low thousands by some measures (wearing masks in winter, handwashing, strict working at home for any bugs, etc).

This sounds reasonable to me - none of these measures are particularly drastic or disruptive and things like handwashing and not going into work/school when we're ill, we'll we should have been doing these anyway. It's not like anyone is suggesting we go into lockdown every winter.

I'd like to think that adults were more likely to stay at home/work from home in the future with mild illnesses because if you can effectively wfh it's much more community minded not to pass on colds or coughs or d&v.

It's really not true in schools, though.

Whilst there weren't as many coughs and colds going round this autumn, children were definitely still coming into school with them and not staying home or getting tested for Covid. They were better at using the hand gel in the classroom after they'd sneezed, and they had masks in corridors.

There was a significant uptick in tummy aches and headaches in the classroom, which I'm putting down to either anxiety around the weird and different atmosphere and rule changes or undiagnosed Covid cases (because those common symptoms in children never got added to the list requiring a test, like in other countries). The children with headaches and fatigue and tummy aches often sat next to one another, so it was either social contagion, coincidence or something viral being passed around.

@turnitonagain

I do hope now that remote working has been somewhat normalised this is the end of going to work with cold symptoms. I used to think it’s best to drag myself in and then leave midday if still feeling unwell. Last time I had flu I caught it at our office Christmas lunch from a colleague who’d just returned from a work trip overseas and said he had a sore throat midway through the meal

Alright if you work in an office/from home. I work in a supermarket and still have to go in with a streaming nose, red raw throat and all the other lovely symptoms, because if I don't I can lose my job. 3% absence days is all you're allowed for 12 months, for me that's approximately 4 days. At the company I work for someone felt severely unwell on shift but couldn't leave because they were on a final warning (had illnesses relating to their weight), store manager told them off and they stayed until the end of their shift. They went home and by the money they were dead, all because this person wanted to avoid losing their job. They were only very young - early 20's.

I know that is an extreme example, but it's the corner we've sadly been backed into. I'd love to work a job where I am not worried about taking time off or having to go home due to illness, but here we are.

A certain very senior royal, notorious for saying silly things, some years ago:

"I would like to be reincarnated as a deadly virus, to do something about overpopulation."

Perhaps he got his wish.

@AssassinatedBeauty as an emetophobe, the reduction of Norovirus is my one silver lining of Covid!!!

That and the fact that it will no longer be acceptable to struggle into work with a cough/cold... I used to catch 3 or 4 bad colds a year and it seems so grim now to think back on people spreading it at work. Many would struggle in just to "show their face" and prove they were really sick because of shitty employers!