This year's flu season was virtually nonexistent.The flu all but disappeared amid the Covid-19 pandemic, thanks in large part to social distancing measures aimed at reducing the coronavirus's spread.
CDC reports that the numbers from the 2020-21 flu season are two-thirds lower than the rates of the 2011-12 season which set records at the time of the lowest and shortest flu peak. But experts say there could be a downside: Scientists may struggle to predict what flu strains will dominate the next flu season—making it challenging to create effective vaccines.
According to CDC, the hospitalization rate for the 2020-21 flu season in America was just 0.7 per 100,000 people—the lowest since the agency started tracking flu data in 2005. In fact, over the course of the last flu season, there was just one pediatric flu death—compared to 196 in the 2019-20 flu season.
Part of the reason for that sudden drop-off could simply be a lack of testing for influenza.
I know that pre and grade schoolers (and their supervisors) get all kinds of childhood illnesses and thus build up natural immunities.
Isolation/protection may have it's own downside later on in life as the older body has little immunity.
But it shows that being anti-social has benefits, even if you go stir crazy from the isolation.
Edited by Rogerdodger, 11 May 2021 - 09:35 PM.