More on the Vanishing Flu
Even "Bad News Mike" Understand Mitigation Didn't Make the Flu Go Away
Although I recently wrote on the vanishing flu, I thought I'd bring this topic up again as I still think it'll be critically important to understanding how the country will react this winter to any resurgence in flu/covid. As long as the belief persists that flu is "solvable" we will continue to be subjected to massively disruptive mitigation measures aimed at trying to control Covid. With that in mind, it piqued my interest that epidemiologist Michael Olsterholm weighed in on the subject in one of his recent podcasts.
You may recognize Dr. Olsterholm's name, he was a former advisor to the Biden administration and he's been quite a Covid hawk throughout the pandemic. So much so that he’s gained the nickname “Bad News Mike”. Yet in some ways he's much more reasonable than your average Covid hawk, and he even made waves earlier in the year by admitting that cloth and surgical masks are basically useless in stopping the spread of Covid.
Here's a link to a 5 minutes clip from his podcast: (I think the entire clip is worth your time, but I’ve quoted some of the highlights below)
In this clip he argues that those claiming we can control flu are dangerously misguided and have no concept of what happens during a pandemic. He goes on to describe how in 2009, during the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, there was also an absence of other respiratory viruses similar to what we saw last year with Covid, except clearly in 2009 this could not be attributed to mitigation measures as none were taken.
Here are a couple choice quotes from the podcast:
"In the 2009 H1N1 Pandemic... [the virus] spread around the world in March 2009, hit a peak here in North America in late April or early May and then dropped precipitously in terms of numbers, no mitigation strategies, no canceling of classes or businesses, no masking, no distancing, and no vaccine. It just went away."
"During that summer, we saw virtually no respiratory virus transmission activity, including any of the four standard flu viruses. Well, then we got to August, and we saw another big peak of H1N1. And those cases actually peaked in late September and came down precipitously ... after that."
"What was most telling was that if you look at the winter season of 2009 and 10 when people were concerned, it would come back again or we would see this widespread problem with other respiratory pathogens. It was almost an absent winter in terms of respiratory pathogens, RSV, all the things we worry about didn't show up."
"We don't know why; not because of mitigation."
Getting back to 2021, “Bad News Mike” had the following to stay on the status of flu in the world currently:
“We saw no major flu activity whatsoever in the southern hemisphere's winter, which they have just completed. Just had a conversation this past week with one of the leading flu researchers, surveillance experts in the world. They're virtually seeing throughout North America, Europe, et cetera almost no flu activity at all right now, none. So the point being is, how can you say you solved the flu because somehow it appeared and disappeared?”
It's fantastic to see him admit this. Epidemiologists have observed the "Vanishing Trick" over and over again during previous pandemics including in 2009, but they still don't have a good explanation for it.
Meanwhile, we have public health organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics claiming onerous mitigation measures in schools like masking kids "reduced the spread of flu by 99%". If we ever want our children to breathe free in schools again, the error in this hypothesis must be laid bare.
If we ever want this madness to stop, we need to shatter this illusion of control once and for all.
Anyway 0 and 2,