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by ineedasername 1875 days ago
The lack of Flu infections in the population that did not contract COVID cannot be explained by viral interference. Viral interference would only explain a decreased influenza infection rate among those exposed to COVID.
2 comments
tshaddox 1875 days ago
If a large portion of the people who contracted COVID are removed from the set of people who could have potentially exposed me to the flu, doesn't that decrease the likelihood of me contracting the flu regardless of whether I contracted COVID?
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ineedasername 1875 days ago
Removing those people removes, relatively, an extremely small portion of the population. You are removing roughly 10% of the population in the U.S., or 2% worldwide. This does not explain the magnitude of the decrease observed for the flu.

Is it that hard to believe that not being around other people limits the chance of getting sick from other people?

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ryankemper 1875 days ago
> You are removing roughly 10% of the population in the U.S., or 2% worldwide.

These numbers seem way too low if you're talking about the prevalence of people that have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2.

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SkyBelow 1875 days ago
Combination between efforts to avoid COVID and viral interference of those who were exposed would drastically reduce the ability to spread. Could it perhaps have reduced it enough to have stopped a flu season from developing?
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ineedasername 1875 days ago
That's pretty much my belief: efforts to avoid COVID also avoid the flu. Viral interference, theoretically, is part of that picture, but does not fully explain the observed data and has not, to my knowledge been tested itself: references to the phenomena as an explanation for flu decreases are based on research for other viruses. Given the HN community frequently criticizes research or reporting on research for overstating it's claims, I am surprised that so many people here have latched on to an extrapolation from research not directly related to COVID.

It seems far simpler, in the Occam's Razor sense, to begin with the idea that staying away from people makes it harder to get sick from other people.

Unfortunately, COVID restrictions and social distancing have become so politicized that many resist the idea that staying away from people reduces the chance of getting the flu from them, because the implication is that those measures might also have been effective in reducing COVID cases. This contradicts a political point of view and therefore some would like to dismiss it out if hand.

For example I've notice that many of those who believe precautions violated their personal liberty want to diminish the effectiveness of those precautions, which isn't necessary from a logical point of view. It is not logically inconsistent to believe these precautions violated civil liberties even if they were highly effective. It just requires a person to believe that many deaths were a reasonable price to pay.

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