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Original poster

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

304 replies

Dustyboots · 15/02/2021 23:50

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.

OP posts:
Bagamoyo1 · 16/02/2021 09:10

@WATSFORTEA

Flu is still around and people have died from it. Only difference is they have been put down to death by Covid. Infact my neighbour who died of a cancelled operation has Covid on his death certificate even though he didn't have it. So many lies and misinformation spread and I do not know why. Its scary.
Exactly!
Cornettoninja · 16/02/2021 09:11

@WATSFORTEA

Flu is still around and people have died from it. Only difference is they have been put down to death by Covid. Infact my neighbour who died of a cancelled operation has Covid on his death certificate even though he didn't have it. So many lies and misinformation spread and I do not know why. Its scary.
How do you know that? Do you routinely have access to your neighbours medical records and death certificates?
Thomasina79 · 16/02/2021 09:12

COVID and flue are completely different, I’ve had both and trust me they are not the same. My OH had COVID very badly, he found it difficult to breathe, I thought he was going to die. That has never occurred with flu which I’ve not had since having the flu jab.

Please do not under estimate COVID; it is not flu.

steppemum · 16/02/2021 09:13

Just a comment on the norovirus.

There was a study done years ago in a nursery/reception school.
One half of the school continued as normal, and the other half were taught how to wash their hands properly, and then as a class they washed hands when they arrived at school, after break time and before lunch every day.

The number of cases of illness, primarily the stomach bugs that goes round amongst small children, dropped by 75% compared to the control class in the same school.

We definitely coudl improve our health if we made good hand hygeine something that is taught and practiced from an early age.

GhoulWithADragonTattoo · 16/02/2021 09:15

There’s been a hell of a lot more vaccination this year. All over 50s were eligible than usually over 65s. Plus more people actually went for their jab. At the other end all 2 to 11 year olds were given the nasal vaccine. That is many more than in previous years as it has been a rolling programme.

Plus scientists decide each year what mix of strains is likely to be prevalent. Some times they predict poorly. This year they seem to have done well.

Social distancing and less travel and meeting in large groups also helps.

B33Fr33 · 16/02/2021 09:19

At least the belief from the tin hat brigade that Covid is "just" flu did something useful. They all scampered off to get their flu vaccine thinking it would prevent covid.

IEat · 16/02/2021 09:20

Eradicate all viruses by staying home for 19 years ...how bloody depressing

Jgdgjbdssvuuuuu · 16/02/2021 09:22

“There’s been a hell of a lot more vaccination this year. All over 50s were eligible than usually over 65s. Plus more people actually went for their jab. At the other end all 2 to 11 year olds were given the nasal vaccine. That is many more than in previous years as it has been a rolling programme”

Actually, that’s completely untrue. That’s what the papers printed but I was looking up the government stats on this last night. Can’t remember exactly but the increase was pretty marginal last year. Under a 5% increase

GhoulWithADragonTattoo · 16/02/2021 09:23

Actually, the government told people that if got flu and Covid together you were more likely to die. That’s why more people went for flu vaccines before Covid ones were available.

BeautifulStar · 16/02/2021 09:23

I worry for next year as we won’t know what to put in the flu vaccine.

I also worry about our immune systems, we do need to be exposed to mild illnesses and fight them off. Especially children and babies.

Add in all the anti bac stuff and constant hand sanitising....

I worrry about this too. I very rarely get ill and I believe it’s because I’m exposed to all sorts having 4 dc’s and working with children - I afraid that this suppression of other normal expected flus/cold etc will mean we have diminished immunity. Will they all come back with a massive bang?

Angrymum22 · 16/02/2021 09:24

Lots of reasons why we are not seeing flu and norovirus

  1. High level of hand washing and sanitising both in the home and in public places where normally you would not see hand washing ( supermarkets, pubs, pretty much everywhere really)
  2. Social distancing and mask wearing
  3. Surface hygiene, again in lots of places you would not see it in the past
  4. Low level of international travel. Virus needs a vector.
  5. Particularly for norovirus restaurants and cafes have been closed, you only need one member of staff with norovirus to infect 100s of customers. The same in hospitals.
  6. similar to 5. No visitors in hospitals. Staff are much more likely to take time off with vague symptoms.
The list could go on and these are just the boring reasons without getting into the novel ideas about one virus suppressing another.
RedMarauder · 16/02/2021 09:24

@Bagamoyo1

I think people have had flu, and they’ve died of it. But if they happened to have Covid at the same time, it was recorded as a Covid death. Don’t ask me why, but there has been pressure on medics from the outset to attribute deaths to Covid. I have first hand experience of this.
Rubbish.

The measures put in place to stop us catching Covid, actually stopped us catching flu.

In the case of flu has an R rate lower than Covid.

GhoulWithADragonTattoo · 16/02/2021 09:27

It’s true! The government extended the programme massively from over 65s to over 50s. That’s a massive increase. And the ce nasal spray has been rolled out from. Current 11 year olds were the first to get it annually when they were 2!

Cornettoninja · 16/02/2021 09:27

@IEat

Eradicate all viruses by staying home for 19 years ...how bloody depressing
This is pretty much the definition of hyperbole.

No wonder you’re depressed if you inflate reality so dramatically.

Bagamoyo1 · 16/02/2021 09:28

But redmarauder if the distancing measures stopped flu spreading, why didn’t they stop Covid spreading?

turnitonagain · 16/02/2021 09:29

@Bagamoyo1

But redmarauder if the distancing measures stopped flu spreading, why didn’t they stop Covid spreading?
Because Covid is more contagious and we have no base level of immunity to it. Millions had flu vaccines as well.
RedMarauder · 16/02/2021 09:30

@Delatron Babies and children will be fine as the immune system doesn't work like that.

You have also forgotten that children over 2 are having the flu jab so will be able to fight cold and flu similar viruses.

I've worked with and met adults from other countries where they don't have common colds and flu, who have caught one or both in the UK. None of them have ended up in hospital.

If you are using anti bac gel on your baby you are strange. My toddler just washes her hands with soap and water - but then again it is part of her potty training to help ensure as she gets older she doesn't spread norovirus.

RedMarauder · 16/02/2021 09:32

@Bagamoyo1

But redmarauder if the distancing measures stopped flu spreading, why didn’t they stop Covid spreading?
The R rate for flu is lower than for Covid, so flu is less transmissible.
Keratinsmooth · 16/02/2021 09:34

Many more people have had the flu vaccine than ever before and people have been isolating so it’s not a surprise that hospitals didn’t see the usual flu cases.

bumblingbovine49 · 16/02/2021 09:34

@PPNC

Yes Flu has been almost eradicated. There are 3 schools of thought:

1 - Some Covid cases/deaths are actually flu under another name if treated symptomatically and not actually tested. Symptoms are the same sort of.

2 - we eradicated flu with distancing etc measures

3 - viruses “fight” each other, they don’t like sharing a host so flu has basically been kicked out of his territory by Covid

1 - I think is fully possible

2 - I think is bollocks because we would have eradicated Covid too

3 - I’d have to be a virologist to understand. Seems both logical and illogical when we do sometimes get 2 viruses at the same time living in us.

I have read some theories about number 3, but can't seem to find them now. Not exactly that the body can't host more than one virus, people do occasionally get more than one infectious disease at a time but it is pretty rare very unusual for someone to be affected by more than two infectious diseases at one time. So if one infectious virus is dominant the others recede. This makes some sense as it is me.

Even in normal winter 'flu' seasons there is a sort of rough order to which viruses dominate during the winter, so early on you get the rhinoviruses/colds etc in autumn which gives way to RSV and norovirus in autumn to winter, then you get the flu viruses later on from Dec onwards into early Spring

Of course this doesn't mean that you can't get a cold in January or RSV in April just that the peaks tend to happen in sequence in most geographical areas. The theory is that the environment only has 'capacity' for a limited number of circulating infectious diseases at any one time. Given that Covid is so prevalent, it may be 'taking up all the infectious disease space' and it isn't allowing flu to get its usual winter hold. Once it dies down, flu and all of the others will be back and Covid will settle into it's own 'seasonality' space

That is the theory anyway. Might be a load of bollocks I suppose Grin

Wildswim · 16/02/2021 09:35

@Xenia

This goes back to what happens with people in isolated jungle with no contact with others - as soon as even the smallest cold reaches them large numbers die as they do not have immunity from childhood etc. It is one reason we are saving sadly currently saving 90 year olds (not that that is a bad thing in itself) but in the process ensuring the current crop of our children do not have immunity and will not have the lives the 90 year olds will as the children will not the immunity they get from winters of coughs and colds.
Excellent point.

Children are the losers in this whole damn thing.

morninglive · 16/02/2021 09:38

Hasn't stopped bloody colds. Went back to work after months of furlough and caught a cold on the first day.

ErrolTheDragon · 16/02/2021 09:42

@Bagamoyo1

But redmarauder if the distancing measures stopped flu spreading, why didn’t they stop Covid spreading?
Read that guardian link upthread. With no distancing and extra hygiene levels in place, the reproduction rate of covid is 3 (each person who gets it on average passes it to 3 people) whereas for flu it's ~1.3. Flu is just a lot less naturally spreadable. The lockdown etc have to get the covid 3 below 1 to stop exponential spreading, so that each infected person on average passes it to less than one other person. (This is basic stuff everyone should understand by now). So of course they'll knock the already lower flu transmission rates much lower.

We're now at a point in the U.K. where the measures have got the transmission rate of covid back below 1. The one for flu must be way lower. But even if it was down to a modest 0.5 ... just multiple 0.5 by itself a few times and see what happens.

ErrolTheDragon · 16/02/2021 09:46

Children are the losers in this whole damn thing.

Scientists are already thinking about how to develop covid vaccinations for children which could give lifetime protection, as we do with measles etc.

Talking about natural immunity is all very well but seems to forget that in the days before vaccines and antibiotics, large numbers of children wouldn't survive childhood.Hmm

RedMarauder · 16/02/2021 09:50

@Xenia and @Wildswim that is nonsense.

Children over 2 still have the flu nasal spray. They will therefore make antibodies to some of the viruses that cause flu. If they catch a different strain their bodies will be able to recognise it as a flu virus and fight it off.

Also people including children are still catching colds like morninglive - just not as many as some would in a normal year. Again their bodies will recognise it as one of the common cold viruses and fight it off.

It is not like you are giving blankets with the measles virus to a group of people who have never come in contact with a virus like measles before. Children will have come in contact with flu and common colds by vaccination or by catching it.