So have we just given up even pretending to care about the virus now

Cambsred said:
Sometimes I'm not sure whether you are being serious or not.

Do you think the flu is now nullified?
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Thousands of swab samples are processed and analysed by scientists at Public Health England (PHE) every week to survey the prevalence of different respiratory diseases in the population.

But of the 685,243 samples that have been reviewed at PHE’s laboratories since the first week of January, not a single one has tested positive for influenza.
In the week up to 31 December 2020, just one case of flu was confirmed by laboratory analysis.

February 25th 2021. Quotes from The Independent.
 
Randy said:
Thousands of swab samples are processed and analysed by scientists at Public Health England (PHE) every week to survey the prevalence of different respiratory diseases in the population.

But of the 685,243 samples that have been reviewed at PHE’s laboratories since the first week of January, not a single one has tested positive for influenza.
In the week up to 31 December 2020, just one case of flu was confirmed by laboratory analysis.

February 25th 2021. Quotes from The Independent.
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At that time with significant social distancing, masking, lockdown flu had a remarkable decline. Unfortunately it hasn't disappeared, and indeed cases are still remarkably low it still exists.

With all the above measures reduced/ removed all together for the most part the expectation is the flu season will be as previous years.

Fingers crossed the flu jab may be more specific due to the reduction in current cases and possible vaccine targets.
 
Cambsred said:
At that time with significant social distancing, masking, lockdown flu had a remarkable decline. Unfortunately it hasn't disappeared, and indeed cases are still remarkably low it still exists.

With all the above measures reduced/ removed all together for the most part the expectation is the flu season will be as previous years.

Fingers crossed the flu jab may be more specific due to the reduction in current cases and possible vaccine targets.
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Don't they use the previous year's flu to 'design' the flu jab for the following year? Wonder how that will work this year when everything with a cough/temperature/loss of taste/smell was automatically deemed covid?
 
Randy said:
Don't they use the previous year's flu to 'design' the flu jab for the following year? Wonder how that will work this year when everything with a cough/temperature/loss of taste/smell was automatically deemed covid?
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My understanding was that they used potentially successful strains from the southern hemisphere flu season although I dont have any hard basis for that.

It is fair to say with the flu never taking hold and testing fairly accessible for covid in the winter 2020/21 that covid was rife. The testing data for the ONS is fairly good with the weekly reporting comparing flu/ respiratory virus/ covid.
 
Cambsred said:
My understanding was that they used potentially successful strains from the southern hemisphere flu season although I dont have any hard basis for that.

It is fair to say with the flu never taking hold and testing fairly accessible for covid in the winter 2020/21 that covid was rife. The testing data for the ONS is fairly good with the weekly reporting comparing flu/ respiratory virus/ covid.
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I don't know what the flu season was like in the southern hemisphere this year so will be interesting to see how successful this year's flu jab will be at stopping people needing hospital treatment for flu.
 
Randy said:
Don't they use the previous year's flu to 'design' the flu jab for the following year? Wonder how that will work this year when everything with a cough/temperature/loss of taste/smell was automatically deemed covid?
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Not quite. According to the article below, they use the viruses that are in circulation at the time they first start to develop the vaccines (usually about 6 months before the start of the flu season) on the basis of which four strains they estimate will be most prevalent in the upcoming season.

Selecting Viruses for the Seasonal Influenza Vaccine

Also, it's not true that "everything with a cough/temperature/loss of taste/smell was automatically deemed covid."

Incidentally this also demonstrates how in one sense, saying that no previous vaccine has ever been developed as fast as the covid vaccines is not quite accurate. New, seasonal influenza vaccines are developed every single year in just 6 months.
 
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Randy said:
Don't they use the previous year's flu to 'design' the flu jab for the following year? Wonder how that will work this year when everything with a cough/temperature/loss of taste/smell was automatically deemed covid?
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It wasn't
 
Social distancing, much better hygiene and masks stopped the flu dead in its tracks. We should still be doing 2 of those and I can tell you from my own experience at work that decent hygiene has left the building as a one-off novelty with some people.
 
Randy said:
I thought we had nullified the threat of flu? It was virtually non existent around the world these past 12 months due to lockdown measures and masks etc.
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It was still about but not spreading due to our restricted mixing.

Heavy colds and flu will be back again now that we're mixing again.
 
Randy said:
Don't they use the previous year's flu to 'design' the flu jab for the following year? Wonder how that will work this year when everything with a cough/temperature/loss of taste/smell was automatically deemed covid?
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No, it was deemed Covid after the test came back positive?
 
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