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– It may be difficult to fathom, but the pandemic also seems to have an advantage: the flu is virtually non-existent this year. Popular science delivers the remarkable statistic: In 2019, the US registered 65,000 cases from the end of September to the end of December. In 2020 that number will have dropped to 1,000. It seems that all the precautions people take to ward off COVID – masks, social distancing, avoiding indoor social activities, etc. – also work to keep the flu at bay. In addition, there are flu shots. Researchers are also studying the theory that there is some kind of complex interplay between COVID and flu. As in, the virus behind COVID could boost people’s immunity levels against the flu, according to the Wall Street Journal. However, more research is needed to understand that possibility.
“This is an extremely puzzling phenomenon,” said pediatrician Norio Sugaya, who is a member of the World Health Organization flu committee. “We are in a historic, incredible situation.” It’s not just in the US: Flu rates have fallen similarly around the world. 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 if COVID disappears. Such as Science explains, one of the fears is that the flu will come back strongly next season, because so few people got it this year. But that can be mitigated if people make more permanent adjustments to COVID safety protocols or perhaps make more of a point to get their flu shots. The flu kills hundreds of thousands of people every year around the world every year, and “we have to wonder if we will continue to allow it in the future,” virologist Tetsuya Mizutani told the log. (Read more flu stories.)