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by nradov 1623 days ago
Should we also distribute influenza tests to everyone for use every time they meet friends or family? If not, why not? Seasonal influenza has a somewhat lower fatality rate but it still kills thousands every year and can be spread by asymptomatic carriers.
2 comments
acdha 1623 days ago
We arguably should be taking influenza more seriously but influenza is not sending people to the hospitals at levels sufficient to cause overload, or increasing the death rates substantially. We also still have some gaps — for example, the COVID vaccines are more effective than the influenza vaccines (it is a famously mutagenic virus) but the flu vaccines are available to even very young children whereas children under 5 cannot be vaccinated.

Don't forget, this is not a permanent forever program but a reaction to a raging pandemic. If we had high enough vaccination rates to keep COVID patients from overwhelming the medical system, that would drive the stress down to something like influenza levels and we could relax measures accordingly.

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nradov 1623 days ago
In prior years hospitals were routinely overloaded during the winter by influenza and other respiratory viruses.

https://youtu.be/GklHGYY8vN8

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acdha 1623 days ago
Yes, but this is worse and global. Again, I’m talking about the current problem, not saying that we shouldn’t take precautions for the flu — we should be doing easy precautionary measures like mask mandates anytime things are getting overloaded, including improving capacity. The American health system being designed for profit maximization means we have less resilience even under non-pandemic conditions.
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spookthesunset 1622 days ago
You’ll never get a good answer to this. All this testing does is further propel the panic and hysteria.

All these people who want this testing should be asking themselves what changes in the treatment of their viral infection if they know it was Covid instead of some other common respiratory virus? For the vast majority of the public the difference in treatment for Covid is the exact same as any other respiratory illness: stay home, get rest, and drink lots of liquid.

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