What Made the Flu Go Away?
Hint: It wasn't our NPI's
If there’s one fallacy in the Covid Craziness Era in most need of debunking, it’s the belief that masking, social distancing, and other Non-Pharmacological Interventions (NPI's) are nearly completely responsible for eliminating this year's Flu season in the US. If you ever get into a conversation with one of the Covid faithful they’ll act indignant as to how anyone could deny this fact, and act aghast as to what other explanation anyone could possible have? I'll take that challenge! (And I brought receipts!)
Simply put, in March of 2020, as Covid-19 was breaking out across the world, Flu virus in every corner of the globe disappeared. The key point is that this happened everywhere Regardless of the NPI measures taken in any individual country.
A perfect example is Sweden, everyone's go to example for why these NPI's aren't effective. One can examine documented cases for various Cold/Flu Viruses over the last 5 winters in Sweden. The effect is clear, in weeks 11 - 13 (March) of the 2019/2020 season all these viruses abruptly disappeared. Then so far in the 2020/2021 season... nilch!
Remember, Sweden never mandated masks or saw mask usage rise above a couple percentage points in public. Sweden also never closed primary schools, and had only minor restrictions on bars and restaurants. There was plenty of opportunity for the Flu to spread but it hasn't!
For good measure one can review the US data to see the same effect. Don't you think that if NPI's mattered, that some of the more open states like Florida or the Dakotas would be seeing Flu cases again?
Hopefully by now I've presented enough evidence to at least give you some doubt in the argument that we can credit masks and other NPI's for the disappearance of Flu. But this begs the questions: what caused it?
A Lancet Study from September, 2020 investigating the interactions between Rhinovirus and Flu virus may give us the answer. Here's the key line:
"One respiratory virus can block infection with another through stimulation of antiviral defenses 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…"
Essentially, viruses interfere with one another and compete for hosts. It's very rare for someone to become co-infected with multiple respiratory viruses at once. When Covid came on board in March it was so much more contagious than Flu that it completely out competed the Flu and other Cold/Flu viruses. The lack of hosts has kept the Flu severely suppressed this year and might mean lesser Flu seasons in future years while Covid is still prominent.
So what's more likely? That NPI's that haven't done a thing to stop Covid are somehow a miracle cure against Flu (even in the places that don't use them...) Or that a tested, though not completely understood, natural competition mechanism between viruses allows for a new pandemic virus to temporarily suppress other viruses? I know what Occam's Razor tells me.
When we discuss how and when to open, it is important that we look at the facts from across the country and the globe which clearly demonstrate just how ineffective NPI's have been. They haven't stopped Covid, and they don't get credit for the Flu either.
Anyway 0 and 2…
Hat Tip to Kyle Lamb who’s thread debunking the Twin-Demic became the source for much of this post.