Covid = back.

[bravotwozero]

God help whoever's in Louisiana right now. The delta outbreak in this low vaccination state was bad enough, they have 500 patients on ventilators right now. That hurricane is going to seriously gut punch whatever healthcare system that's still functioning out there, and we'll likely be absorbing the fallout here in Houston...

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[bravotwozero]

So some people are saying flu will be back with a vengeance this year.

I have my doubts. Our situation isn’t drastically different from this time of the year in 2020. I have yet to see a confirmed flu case on a RPP that we’ve been doing all year since the pandemic began.

If the virus doesn’t find enough vectors to infect, it isn’t going to survive. Might it be more likely the virus simply goes extinct?

 

[Arcan57]

So some people are saying flu will be back with a vengeance this year.

I have my doubts. Our situation isn’t drastically different from this time of the year in 2020. I have yet to see a confirmed flu case on a RPP that we’ve been doing all year since the pandemic began.

If the virus doesn’t find enough vectors to infect, it isn’t going to survive. Might it be more likely the virus simply goes extinct?

Our children’s hospital is seeing flu and comparatively few people are masking which really made a difference in transmission last year. So I think it will be back, unsure if it’s going to be historically bad

 

[Dred Pirate]

So some people are saying flu will be back with a vengeance this year.

I have my doubts. Our situation isn’t drastically different from this time of the year in 2020. I have yet to see a confirmed flu case on a RPP that we’ve been doing all year since the pandemic began.

If the virus doesn’t find enough vectors to infect, it isn’t going to survive. Might it be more likely the virus simply goes extinct?

I think it will be somewhere between last year (essentially non-existent) and a normal year. You have a substantial portion of the population still practicing caution and some on the opposite end of the spectrum. Sometmes it seems like a reverse bell curve.

 

[skougess]

The influenza virus also has non human reservoirs. It's out there, I promise. Just tested someone positive for flu A last week for the first time in 18 months.