“The silver lining is that we don’t see the flu. The flu is almost absent,” said Dr. Andra Blomkalns, director of Emergency Medicine at Stanford Health.
“There is no doubt that this year is an extraordinary year,” said Kaiser Permanente flu expert Dr. Randy Bergen, who told ABC7 News that California would normally see a severe rise in flu cases in early January, but not this year.
“We’re still testing thousands of people in our emergency rooms and in our hospitals on a combination of COVID and flu testing, and we’re essentially not seeing the flu. Some weeks we don’t have cases, others we may have one or two cases.”
Some say any precautions taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19 keep flu cases at bay. But if they are so effective with one virus, why not the other?
“It’s a great question,” said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, a health professor at Stanford, who explained that part of the answer may lie in pre-coronavirus studies over the past few years that revealed a strange competition between viruses.
“It could be something that infection with one virus can somehow reduce the risk of infection with another,” said Maldonado. “Whether it’s immunity or whether they just suppress the growth of another virus, it’s not really clear, but there’s certainly a suspicion from a few years ago that viruses could compete.”
Another contributing factor – many more people have received flu vaccines this year.
And many kids don’t go to school and don’t get together with friends as often as usual.
“Flu always starts in schools. It starts with children,” Bergen said.
Experts warn people not to be on the lookout. There is still plenty of time this winter to get the flu back.
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