Rates of influenza have remained persistently low through late 2020 and into 2021, cratering from levels a year ago and raising the puzzling specter of sharply reduced influenza transmission rates even as positive tests for COVID-19 have shattered numerous records over the last several weeks.
Where have all the flu cases gone?
Epidemiologist Knut Wittkowski thinks he can answer the riddle.
“Influenza has been renamed COVID in large part,” Wittkowski, the
former head of biostatistics, epidemiology and research design at Rockefeller University, told the outlet.
“There may be quite a number of influenza cases included in the ‘presumed COVID’ category of people who have COVID symptoms (which Influenza symptoms can be mistaken for), but are not tested for SARS RNA,” he added.
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What happened to “flu season?” In the age of COVID, “the flu” has been reclassified as coronavirus, says epidemiologist
A few months ago, some infectious disease experts began warning that it would extremely difficult, as the COVID-19 pandemic lingered into the fall, for frontline healthcare providers to determine if sickness was due to the novel coronavirus or good, old-fashioned influenza.
The reason, they said, is that in many respects, flu symptoms could and would mimic COVID-19 symptoms.
But according to one epidemiologist, that problem has been solved by the ‘powers that be’: Simply
reclassify flu cases as COVID-19 illnesses that way, “flu cases” will go down this year while Joe Biden’s authoritarian Democrats get to continue ‘justifying’ perpetual lockdowns and theft of our liberty and freedom.
Rates of influenza have remained persistently low through late 2020 and into 2021, cratering from levels a year ago and raising the puzzling specter of sharply reduced influenza transmission rates even as positive tests for COVID-19 have shattered numerous records over the last several weeks.
Where have all the flu cases gone?
Epidemiologist Knut Wittkowski thinks he can answer the riddle.
“Influenza has been renamed COVID in large part,” Wittkowski, the
former head of biostatistics, epidemiology and research design at Rockefeller University, told the outlet.
“There may be quite a number of influenza cases included in the ‘presumed COVID’ category of people who have COVID symptoms (which Influenza symptoms can be mistaken for), but are not tested for SARS RNA,” he added.
Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 10January 2021
The news posted last week for the coronavirus 2019-nCoV (aka SARS-CoV-2), which produces COVID-19 disease, has been surveyed and some important articles are summarized here. The articles are more or less organized with general virus news and anecdotes first, then stories from around the US, followed by an increased number of items from other countries around the globe. Data continues to be quite eratic this week because of the holiday. We hope this is the last week for that. Economic news related to COVID-19 is found here.
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