CDC Currently Reports a Record-Low for Positive Flu Tests
As Americans begin noticing there is no “flu season” this year, there is a call for the audit of cases being reported.
One of the fears ginned-up by the American media is that when flu season hit, the nation would-be hit with a double whammy of infections.
It turns out the flu has mysteriously disappeared.
As coronavirus cases surge nationwide, the flu has seen a remarkable dip. Reported cases of influenza reached record lows last week, with fewer than 40 diagnoses recorded during Dec. 13-19.
In week 51 of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “FluView” data monitoring system, 36 positive flu tests were documented. This marks a steep decrease from last year’s total of 7,703 cases during the same time frame. The positivity rate has sharply declined this calendar year as only 0.10% of tests taken this year came back positive. The five-year average is 15.80% positive.
The data comes in defiance of the “twindemic” concerns perpetuated by medical experts, or the idea that the raging coronavirus pandemic and the seasonal increase in reported flu cases would converge with catastrophic results. Dr. Brian Garibaldi, the medical director of Johns Hopkins University’s Biocontainment Unit, told the Washington Examiner that “we have to be concerned about the possibility of having a surge in flu at the same time as we’re seeing a surge in COVID.”
Americans are beginning to notice there is no “flu season.”
Flu cases both locally and across Pennsylvania have remained low compared to the record-breaking case counts seen in the 2019-20 flu season. But doctors cautioned Tuesday it’s still early in the season, and the usual January uptick could coincide with a holiday-driven surge in covid-19 cases.
As of Dec. 19, there have been 767 lab-confirmed cases of influenza reported across Pennsylvania. The official surveillance season for influenza begins the 40th week of the year — this season, Sept. 27 — and ends the 20th week of the following year. This season will end May 22.
Across the state, just under 130,000 cases of the flu were confirmed in the 2019-20 season, which ended just as the covid-19 pandemic began taking hold. The influenza count did not include covid-19 cases.
And while California reels from stringent pandemic restrictions, one former San Diego City Council member and Chairman of Reform California, Carl DeMaio, calls for a full audit of the region’s COVID-19 numbers.
DeMaio explained, “if you are going to use a set of numbers like COVID stats to shut down the economy, to take people’s livelihoods away, then we have to really look closely at what those numbers really mean, and whether those numbers are giving us the right picture.”
Continuing, “my concern has been from the get go, that we are relying on numbers from government agencies, that may have a different agenda at stake. We would benefit from having a different set of eyes looking at them, such as an auditor or a citizens review committee. Because again, the decisions being made on these data sets are sweeping, the lockdowns are far reaching in terms of their impact.”
DeMaio then said San Diego County has refused to have any look over or vet our local COVID-19 numbers.
The disappearing flu season could be explained by enhanced infection-control measures that are being practiced. However, as DeMaio fears, the explanation could be the massaging of statistics to support a fear based-narrative.
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Comments
So COVID19 is apparently a very effective flu vaccine with terrible side effects.
One marker for the veracity of ‘fear’ over flu is the near complete absence of Tamiflu prescriptions.
Go ask any pharmacist, or look at the orders where you can. Literally no Tamiflu has been prescribed.
So, with the whole population supposedly on alert for flu-like symptoms, the mere thought of a possible fever mandates a Covid test but the presence of plain old flu seems to have been stricken from all the treatment protocols. Isn’t it strange that doctors would change 20 years of diagnosis and treatment protocols all of a sudden, without any guidance from ‘experts’.
Tamiflu has to be taken at the first sign of symptoms, people calling and walking into clinics with anything like a flu-like illness were always given a Rx for this, it’s a ‘do no harm’ drug and a flu test isn’t even necessary (and rarely done). Now if they make the patient sit around 2-3 days for the Covid test, it’s too late to treat what probably was plain old influenza.
So docs report that as “covid suspect”. The folks questioning this are 100% right, but the fear porn has gotten to everyone and this isn’t getting the traction that it should.
What will it take to wake up the public?
All the more reason to ax the traitor governors and traitor mayors.
Big Money Is Now Being Poured Into The Effort To Recall California Governor Gavin Newsom
Gateway Pundit
RUT HO.
British Woman Arrested After Filming Empty Hospital Wards While Health Officials Push COVID Panic
The Last Refuge
New year’s greetings
https://youtu.be/QtLm_psmyRs
RUT HO.
Shocking Number of Front Line Health Care Workers Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/01/shocking-number-front-line-health-care-workers-refusing-covid-19-vaccine/
The link seems to be a Trump video with no relevance to the article. If you are going to link something say what it is if it’s off topic please
They will declare that mask wearing, social isolation, and lock downs are the reason there is no flu (never mind these do not seem to stop COVID – just watch the shadows on the wall). Therefore, all these measure must continue forever.
Comply or be cancelled.
I wonder if actual flu cases are being counted as Covid-19.
I seem to recall that the CDC announced they would not be identifying the Wuhan cases vs the regular flu. I guess they’ll try to include statistics for the common cold (a form of corona virus) now that combining Wuhan with the regular flu has failed to keep the narrative of “explosive growth” going.
I don’t know how they’re handling the statistics elsewhere, but this country has three categories that all count as COVID – confirmed, probable and suspect. The category to look at is “probable”, defined as
Meets clinical criteria AND epidemiologic linkage with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed for SARS-CoV-2.
Clinical Criteria
In the absence of a more likely diagnosis:
At least two of the following symptoms: fever (measured or subjective), chills, rigors, myalgia, headache, sore throat, nausea or vomiting, diarrhea, fatigue, congestion or runny nose
OR
Any one of the following symptoms: cough, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, new olfactory disorder, new taste disorder
OR
Severe respiratory illness with at least one of the following: Clinical or radiographic evidence of pneumonia, Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).
Meets presumptive* laboratory evidence.
Presumptive* laboratory evidence:
Detection of SARS-CoV-2 by antigen test in a respiratory specimen
Meets vital records criteria with no confirmatory laboratory evidence for SARS-CoV-2.. Get that? You don’t actually have to show any lab evidence of COVID to be identified, treated and included in the statistics as COVID cases. Ergo, no flu.
On talk radio heard from a big Tamiflu sales representative sales were practically non existent. I wonder if everyone worried about Covid-19 any bug that looks like it’s appearing must be Covid-19.
CDC – ‘there is no flu this season because people are wearing masks and social distancing.” CDC – “COVID-19 cases are spiraling out of control because people are not complying with mask and social distancing orders.”
You nailed it.
Post of the day.
I can think of three possible explanations:
1. There’s no flu because people are being careful. Therefore the fact that the Dreaded Wuhan Lurgi is still spreading like I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter™ shows that it’s immune to our precautions.
2. People are not being careful, which is the only reason the Dreaded Wuhan Lurgi is spreading despite all the efforts and exhortations by our selfless leaders. Therefore the flu must also be spreading, and is being reported as the Lurgi. Therefore some unknown fraction of the reported Lurgi numbers are actually flu.
3. Regardless of whether people are being careful or not, flu is actually spreading but people are not going to the doctor for it, so there are no statistics being gathered on them.
Meanwhile I have come down with a plain old ordinary coronavirus, also known as the common cold. Normally I’d go out anyway, if I have anywhere to go, but this year with people paranoid about the Chinese coronavirus from Wuhan (a city in China ruled by Chinese Communists where the Chinese-sourced Sino-virus came from), I don’t want to go about them showing visible symptoms of illness. I might as well rent my clothes and bare my head and cover my lip and cry “Unclean, Unclean!”.
I mentioned before the sign on my doctor’s door that in effect says, if you’re healthy come in, but if you’re sick, go away.
That reminds me of some of my pre-med students, who wanted to be doctors, but were disgusted by sick people.
Isn’t position slightly more complicated? I mean the state by state response has been different and each locality has had various levels of compliance. A bland statement of careful vs not careful isn’t going to give a good picture. It will be nuanced with statistical spikes and troughs depending on the scale taken. I’ve referenced in another comment a nature article that’s gives a more scientific discussion of this particular phenomenon
We’ll have a better idea of what happened when have a chance to study national mortality attribution statistics. There may be a few other causes of death that mysteriously declined inexplicably. Chicago murders finished at 17 e.g., no one died in auto accidents,…
I thought of a fourth explanation, for the conspiracy theorists: What if, not only was this year’s Chinese virus deliberately engineered and released on us, but so is every year’s?
</conspiracy-mode>
We all know (I hope) that every year’s flu comes from China. That’s how we know six months in advance what vaccine to prepare. In our summer we look at what hit China last winter, and what is hitting Australia now in their winter, and if it’s the same flu we start making vaccines for it, in the expectation that we’re next.
<conspiracy-mode>
We’ve been assuming all along that China is just unfortunate in being a breeding ground for new strains of flu. But what if they cook up each year’s flu in a lab, and release it on their own population so that it will eventually hit us. In fact, what if we’re not even the targets, we’re just collateral damage from the Chinese government’s long-running plot against its own people?
So maybe this year there’s no flu because the Wuhan Disease was doing such a good job that they didn’t bother to release one.
One-person/child? And, in the civilized West, it’s selective-person/child. Either way, a minority choice. That’s not conspiracy, it’s progress, a veritable great leap/reset. That said, setting aside conspiracies, past, probable, and progressive, the Chinese communists may have changed their clothing, so to speak, and were developing a vaccine that was prematurely released into the wild. The precedents, however, for ruling from the Twilight fringe (e.g. “penumbras and emanations”) are overwhelming, and nagging.
Planned Parent/hood: sequestered and cannibalized carbon fossils and novel cells.
Planned Parent/hood: sequestered and cannibalized carbon fossils and novel life, respectively.
What on earth are you talking about??
The conventional explanation for China’s incubation of every year’s flu strain is that only in China do you have the necessary cohabitation of waterfowl (ducks) and pigs with people, thus encouraging mutation and cross-species selection. You also have a relative lack of sanitation, and enough people to amplify successful strains. As you say, we look to China to see what will come to us next year.
I think that China has demonstrated that it doesn’t have a particularly good handle on virology, and this has been going on for decades. So no, I think this probably isn’t deliberate or planned. On the other hand, it is probably convenient and certainly not a priority to stop, so it continues.
The problem with trying to understand why the flu is so late is that we are in amazingly disrupted times. International travel is way down. Ill travelers are not tolerated. Cloth or disposable paper masks, while demonstrably useless against the Wuhan coronavirus, may well confer protection against mucus-spread diseases like flu. Eliminating large social gatherings probably helps, as does closing schools. When you do “all of the above” it’s hard to separate causation from correlation.
As a side note, pertussis (whooping cough) is also abnormally absent this year; we noticed because we use pertussis as another proxy for respiratory illness detection, and that one IS present year-round in the USA. So it’s not just the China-to-USA pipeline.
As far as using this lack of flu to enforce draconian shutdowns next year when people are bored with COVID, yes, of course they’re going to try it if they think it will get them re-elected in 2022. It’s what they do. If they think it will hurt them politically, they won’t touch it. This isn’t about saving lives and it has nothing to do with actual science.
Interesting points thank you
It seems clear that either the precautions mandated by governors (without legislative approval, I should add) are ineffective against the Chinese Virus or the numbers counted for Chinese Virus are badly off. If the precautions are not effective against the Chinese Virus then that seems to mean that the assumption of aerosol primary transmission is invalid.
One more time. The COVID emergency is a HOAX…HOAX…HOAX. Got it? A mask made of a single layer of t-shirt material constitutes a “mask”. The size of the weave of the cloth makes it totally ineffective at stopping the virus or the droplets which the virus usually travels on. A six foot distance does not put one out of the range of droplets containing the virus, when exhaled. It is even worse, if one is walking, as this means the person walks THROUGH suspended droplets which may be contaminated. Now, the CDC is telling us that the actual death rate, from, COVID is probably around 20,000 per year. That is the average fatality rate from influenza during a single season.
HEAR HEAR.
All the CDC and WHO are accomplishing is to “flatten the curve” so as to eliminate the flu season. By stretching out how long it takes to achieve herd immunity, they can extend the life of the flue interminably. They are even blurring the crossover line from one flu to the next.
So we can expect these shut-downs to be a permanent fixture of life in America. And there is nothing we can do about it since Team Milhouse has officially declared the US Constitution to be a suicide pact.
I’m pretty sure I’ve sent you a number of links in previous posts that show your position to be incorrect. On a basic level covid is a pandemic which means that most countries in the world have it. Are you seriously asserting that all the governments globally are making it up? That kind of statement has equivalence to a flat earther.
First of all, as more evidence comes to light, concerning the danger of COVID-19, the medical community has steadily reduced its transmission rate and mortality rate. And, not by just a little bit either. Why? Probably because the profession depends upon people believing they know what they are talking about. So, their “opinions” are now beginning to fall into line with observed data.
One of the biggest problems with the statistics surrounding COVID was the standards used to classify “cases” and fatalities attributable to the disease. Both were extremely “liberal”, in the words of Dr. Birx. We have seen significant evidence that virtually any death involving a person who had tested positive for exposure before or after death was classified as COVID related. This included deaths due to physical trauma. At the same time, all positive tests for exposure to the virus were being reported as COVID cases, even without symptoms being present. Then there were reports of people reportedly testing positive for COVID who denied ever having taken a test. The problem was that the infection and fatality rate were grossly over-reported.
Now, about pandemics. We see a pandemic, under the current definition, every single year. It is known as the flu season. Influenza reportedly accounts for 290,000-650,000 deaths per year worldwide with between 23,000 and 63,000 in the US alone. And, this is with vaccines and proven therapeutic regimens. And no one even suggests shutting down society or the global economy over it. And, as evidence mounts that the COVID virus is in the same neighborhood as influenza, people are beginning to ask, what is going on here?
The question was never does COVID exist. No one ever doubted that. The question was why was the disease hyped as being an apocalyptic disease? Why were the only countermeasures a societal lockdown and the destruction of the Global economy? And, why did this occur worldwide? Destroying a nation’s economy is counter intuitive to most national leaders. The economy generates the revenue to run the government and fund social programs used to win support from the populace. Why willingly cut that off? And, this happened worldwide. Are we to assume that every world leader was an incompetent boob, except the Swedes? As therapeutics became available, why were they denigrated and, in some cases, banned from use? Again, counter intuitive in the case of an apocalyptic disease. Are we to assume that all of our medical leaders are also incompetent boobs? Then we have the universal condemnation of any medical personnel or authority which put forth the notion that the virus was not as dangerous as reported. Then we have the actions of both our elected leaders and public health officials, both of whom should realize the true seriousness of the disease. They are caught routinely violating their own restrictions to avoid contracting and spreading the disease. Hummm. Maybe they knew something that we didn’t know? And, finally, what happened to claims that this disease was so virulent that almost any contact would produce serious infections? Where were the mass hospitalizations following the Summer of Love demonstrations across the US? How about the same thing following the opening of several states, such as Florida? Again, it didn’t happen. In fact, the reverse happened, according to reports. Those states with the most stringent restrictions and enforcement saw the biggest spikes.
While the virus exists and is a threat, the hoax was in the reporting on it and the response to it. In order for the populace to agree to societal restrictions and the destruction of the economy, they had to be terrified. This was accomplished, largely, by the media, which shamelessly hyped the dangers of the disease. This hype was continued by politicians to support draconian restrictive measures unseen in modern history. Now, we are faced with another question, was thee response some lemming-like coincidence or an orchestrated operation? If not simply a coincidence, then who was responsible and for what purpose? As people are starving to death, facing eviction in the dead of winter, watching their savings and business investments circling the drain and their futures destroyed, by thee reaction to the Kung Flu, people had better start asking these questions. And, we have seen that we can not depend upon the media, politicians or even the leadership of the medical and scientific community to give us straight answers.
@mac45
Dealing with each para in turn
1) the scientific opinion changed as more evidence came in, that’s how science works. More data, more knowledge better conclusions. As a novel virus very little was know in the early days, now it’s been analysed as a world wide priority so of course the various stats about it have changed. This is further complicated by the fact that people now know how to cope with the covid better. Certain treatments increase the survivability so of course the mortality rate has gone down.
2) https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN25U2IO
A link going into detail on why you are wrong. The idea of that death rate has been invented is pure fantasy.
3) the two major differences between flu and coronavirus have been that it’s got no vaccine (until now) and is more dangerous than flu, so of course it was going to be treated differently. It would be daft not to treat it differently. The real question is what kind of response do you have. The western world has done pretty badly, a number of asiatic countries up until recently have done pretty well.
4) sign the media reports stories and the current story has been covid. Well actually to some extent the story has been Trumps moronic leadership with respect to covid. His utter inability to get a grip has been pretty shocking. For balance I think he did pretty well with operation warpspeed, shame the Brits beat him to the finish line
There is no reason for Garibaldi to be “concerned about the possibility”, coronaviruses always “surge” in winter, without exception. Garibaldi is therefore implying that such a surge would be unusual, and I can’t figure out what propaganda purpose is served by this lie.
I’m always a tad wary of a legal site article having a crack at any medical / scientific.
Here is an interesting article exploring the topic
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03519-3
The scientific position seems to be that social distancing and mask wearing have contributed to a reduction as has an uptick in flu vaccination rates but also that there is likely to be other factors which need exploring. Only a brief glance at the article in the link so may have missed other factors. Given that coronavirus is much more transmittable than the flu it’s not overly surprising that flu has reduced by a greater extent than covid but there are more pieces to this particular puzzle.
This article, nor any common sense, explains why the positive test for influenza are only 0.4% of those in 2019. That is a reduction of 99.996% in influenza cases. Even with the lockdowns, masks and social distancing, I find this very hard to believe. Also, the increase in the vaccination rate in the US, as reported in the article, is only 2.9%. That should not translate into what is essentially wiping out influenza in society in a single season.
The same people are giving masks and social distancing credit for the reduction in flu, while simultaneously saying that we’re all doing it wrong and if we were doing masks and social distancing right covid wouldn’t be spiking. Unfortunately they do not explain by what mechanism, if these measures really are effective against respiratory viruses, masks and social distancing are so selectively effective. My reading of Occam says that neither masks nor social distancing are effective against either virus, and that the massive covid spike and concomitant reduction in flu are entirely explained by flu being reported as covid.
I linked to a nature article in a previous post that discusses this. Its probably a multi factorial situation.
You know how the doomsayers are going to spin this:
“Obviously our methods were highly effective…the lockdowns and mask mandates virtually eliminated the Flu this year, but even with those measures, COVID infections and deaths have been high…just imagine how terrible it would have been had we not become tyrants and dictators…we saved you from yourselves, now watch us save you from global warming.”
Proof that Americans, as a whole, are complying with masks, social distancing, hand-washing, etc.
Proof that these measures simply do not work as well against COVID-19.
And strong evidence, if not absolute proof, that COVIC-19 is transmitted by different mechanisms than the flu.