(Newser)
– It can be difficult to understand, but the pandemic seems to have a positive side too: the flu practically does not exist this year. Popular science provides the remarkable statistic: in 2019, the U.S. recorded 65,000 cases from late September to late December. In 2020, that number dropped to 1,000. It seems that all the precautions that people are taking to keep COVID away – masks, social distance, avoiding internal social activities, etc. – are working to keep the flu under control as well. In addition, flu vaccines have increased. The researchers are also studying the theory that some kind of complex interaction between COVID and the flu is at stake. As in, the virus behind COVID may be increasing people’s immunity levels against the flu, according to the Wall Street Journal. However, more research is needed to understand this possibility.
“This is an extremely intriguing phenomenon,” says pediatrician Norio Sugaya, who is part of the World Health Organization’s influenza committee. “We are in an unbelievable and historic situation.” It is not just in the US: flu numbers are equally low worldwide. The trend started in Australia and the rest of the southern hemisphere, where flu cases typically peak between June and August, notes Smithsonian. The big question is what will happen when COVID leaves. Like Science he explains, one fear is that the flu will come back strong next season because so few people have contracted it this year. But that could be mitigated if people adapted COVID’s safety protocols more permanently or perhaps made more of a point of getting flu shots. Flu usually kills hundreds of thousands of people annually worldwide and “we need to ask ourselves whether we will continue to allow it in the future,” virologist Tetsuya Mizutani told diary. (Read more flu stories.)