Still no evidence of influenza circulating in the community, Health Protection Surveillance Centre data shows. And its mid February. We’d normally be in the full fire of it.
— Fergal Bowers (@FergalBowers) February 16, 2021
This afternoon.
*cough*
Meanwhile…
There is no community, businesses and livelihoods ruined, forcing people into hardship and slashing their incomes for nearly a year, but hey, at least we don’t have any flu. Winning. pic.twitter.com/TGVjRkEfaI
— O’Lionaird (@OLionairdLuimni) February 16, 2021
Ah here.
Sponsored Link
He needs a shot of Vitamin D.
I don’t usually get involved in Covid chat on here so excuse my potential ignorance on this but…
Is there not less Flu because of increased sanitation, mask wearing and less social contact?
that’s what they want you to think
Of course you are right, also international travel worldwide has collapsed along with a highly increased worldwide amount of people getting the flu vaccine.
Enjoy this very readable article that explains well why flu infection is thankfully so low and ignore the non scientific illerate conspiracy loons.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03519-3
If we just stop eating, we can eliminate all the multiple health problems caused by obesity, banning travel will reduce road deaths & plane crashes and by the simple expedient of not breathing, we can banish lung cancer. If we all just commit suicide we can ensure there will be no further deaths. We are so close, let’s make one final push to oblivion. I wonder have the USA & Russia got enough nukes left to just eliminate the risk of random, unplanned death by blowing the entire world to pieces? It might, arguably, be less painful than this psychopath’s dream we are currently being coerced into.
Top comment, sensible, yet made hilarious by simply spelling illiterate incorrectly. You big science dude, you!
Yes there is less because of those things.
And the logical conclusion of that is that we should shut down every winter to stop people from dying from flu.
Not that I’d be against that. Just as long as it had start and stop points.
The limbo and uncertainty is what’s ruining people.
Largely agree there (euh, not that there should be a shut down every winter, but yes that that is the logical conclusion, and yes that flu does appear to be lower and that there’s a biological rationale for why it’s lower, and yes that the uncertainty is driving people nuts)
But I’m lost as to the point that Bowers is trying to make.
Just to be difficult, there is an annoying patchiness to this year’s flu data, in that ithe proportion of positive tests is way lower than previous years, but it’s difficult to quantify by how much exactly. There is ‘sentinel’ testing being done in the EU, I don’t recall the number but there are a certain proportion of swabs run for flu in every EEA country for ECDC. However, the majority of people who are tested for COVID are not tested for flu or RSV. In a normal year there would be a lot more flu/RSV tests run and quantification would be more feasible.
Would it not make sense to have a shutdown every year to stop vulnerable people from dying?
Is that not what we’ve all agreed on now – the old and vulnerable must be protected at all costs?
Again, I’d be fine with it as long as it was scheduled properly. Businesses could plan around it and we could just cancel major events for the winter.
It would make sense to fix the health service to stop vulnerable people from dying from the flu. Literally the magic bullet for that particular problem.
We couldn’t even prepare for the second wave of Covid with literally months of warning.
So, I don’t know how wed fix it
I don’t either because I’m not an expert on national health systems but I really want some of those experts to get on board and sort it the feck out.
Urrrgh
I’ve had enough of experts man.
They just seem to be self serving money grabbers.
Seriously, do you actually think that annual Lockdowns are a “logical” step? Why not chop off your head, to avoid having to ever pay for another haircut?
Are you not concerned about the people who die from flu every year?
No the logical reason to shut down is because our health service can’t handle the influx of flu victims every year. Better solution would be to fix the health service.
And the lack of an annual flu epidemic is a good thing. Hopefully, it will encourage more vulnerable people to take the flu jab every year, hopefully reducing hospitalisations and deaths.
Dr Jack Lambert, who was on BS.tv a few weeks ago, an Hospital Consultant in the Mater & UCD School of Medicine – Infectious Diseases; explained the drop off in Flu cases to the lack of opportunity for the Flu Virus
No social gatherings like weddings and parties, less travelling especially on public transport, fewer indoor assemblies like work places and meetings and conferences, very little mixing with strangers like in the supermarket, hand sterlising until your nails fall off, masks
made sense to me anyway
He also said it would return and carry on like it always did, but people may well be more inclined to wear masks on public transport etc, keep up with hand hygiene and participate in annual flu vax drives
btw, he was critical of the failure to investigate other treatments for Covid cases, and possible remedies to prevent Covid infections, or at least limit its toll on the patients, like vitamins, a Betadine throat gargle, and particularly Hydroxychloroquine
Multiple studies across multiple countries have shown hydroxychloroquine to be useless please see below
https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/coronavirus-disease-covid-19-hydroxychloroquine
Hopefully the WHO Solidarity Trial will continue to find some effective treatments (Ireland is a contributing member)
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/global-research-on-novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov/solidarity-clinical-trial-for-covid-19-treatments
“It is one of the largest international randomized trials for COVID-19 treatments, enrolling almost 12 000 patients in 500 hospital sites in over 30 countries”
On the face of it that an understandable conclusion.
But when you think about it more, there is a gaping hole in the logic of official’s.
They say that the reason that there are virtually no cases of the flu this season is because of Masks and restrictions. Yet at the same time COVID cases remain high despite the restrictions and the marks!
One of those positions is false.
covid19
is
far
more
contagious
than
the
flu
In that case, surely a huge amount of the hundreds of thousands of workers in essential shops and providing essential services would be getting infected. In some circumstances with normal cases of the flu, which appears to be eradiated.
please refer to my previous comment
I’ve a better conclusion, which is that we won’t, more than that we literally can’t, understand the interaction of covid, flu and health measures properly until after extensive studies by experts over a period of time.
>There is no community, businesses and livelihoods ruined, forcing people into hardship and slashing their incomes for nearly a year
I’m confused by this take, would he prefer vulnerable people dying then? Does he think the influenza is being referred to here is covid-19?
Profits before people. As long as other people are dying, those sort of people don’t care about the death toll, only that their bank balances are dwindling.
What has everything humans live for, our very society, love, sex, sport, talking, hugging, shaking hands, a chat while waiting for a bus, our actual humanity, got to do with profits & bank balances? It’s not the financial cost that matters, it’s the human cost. Even if you think avoidance of death is our prime objective in life, a patently irrational idea, it’s clear that the effects of the Lockdowns on our mental & physical health have vastly outweighed any benefits. Sars02 followed the same Gompertz Curve that every novel virus has, since we started recording such information & it stopped killing people in significant numbers almost a year ago. The idea of a “Second Wave” is entirely unscientific, unprecedented, impossible, it never happened.
it stopped killing people in significant numbers almost a year ago.
Really?
Haven’t you seen the figures for Ireland in January?
It’s all over now baby blue
If we just stop eating, we can eliminate all the multiple health problems caused by obesity, banning travel will reduce road deaths & plane crashes and by the simple expedient of not breathing, we can banish lung cancer. If we all just commit suicide we can ensure there will be no further deaths. We are so close, let’s make one final push to oblivion. I wonder have the USA & Russia got enough nukes left to just eliminate the risk of random, unplanned death by blowing the entire world to pieces? It might, arguably, be less painful than this psychopath’s dream we are currently being coerced into.
Will we all have to get covid vax again next year given the seasonality of the virus?
Possibly. We have the opportunity to get the flu vaccine every year due to the different strains.
Nah, so long as you’re close to a wifi hub you can just specify a time to install your vaccine update.
Expect to be offline for 2 hours to 48 hours and it might fail as well and you will need to reinstall your consciousness.
Don’t worry, Bill has it backed up for you.
When he appeared to me first it was in the form of a helpful paperclip.
Nice man.
Ah yes, Clippy.
How many nights have I dreamed of bending it into a hook to do some desk fishing?