Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by alacombe 1903 days ago
According to https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/flu..., there has been pretty much no flu season this year compared to ~any other year (which in itself is highly suspect).

Last week of January reported 55 vs 23,972 on average any other season.

3 comments

Influenza is not the same as the common cold, which is also sometimes referred to as "the flu". Besides influenza-types, there are a couple of viruses that cause the common cold, among them the aptly named rhinoviruses but also other coronaviruses.

Indeed there's a suspicious drop in influenza-type cases, likely caused by all the social distancing and perhaps by SarS-COV-2 simply out-competing influenza-types in knocking people out.

I’m missing your angle - why is it suspect that there are so few cases?
Because the symptoms are so similar, it's possible it's still spreading but to the same people getting covid and people are only being diagnosed with covid.
You might want to check how they count flu in normal years.