Coronavirus safety measures might have stopped a 2020 flu outbreak

[Chris Smith]

• New CDC data shows that the flu epidemic is almost non-existent in the US, just as the novel coronavirus transmission is at record highs.
• Preventive measures, including face masks, social distancing, and an uptick in vaccinations, have reduced the spread of the flu in 2020.
• Public health experts are no longer worried that the flu and COVID-19 will converge into a so-called “twindemic.”

Public health experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci have been urging the US population to respect measures that could reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission over the summer. They worried the country would get into the fall and winter with a large COVID-19 caseload and that hospitals would have to deal with a “twindemic” threat that could overwhelm some medical systems. The novel coronavirus has been spreading very efficiently in the spring and summer months, but the cold made it even more dangerous. The flu gets activated during the colder seasons as well. Health experts worried that the coronavirus and flu would converge, putting additional pressure on the already strained resources of hospitals.

A few months later, a variation of the nightmare scenario health experts foresaw came true. Some hospitals are overwhelmed by the number of COVID-19 patients. The fall and winter COVID-19 wave is the worst to date, setting awful records across categories. Cases have topped 231,000 on Friday, with the number of deaths hitting 3,300 on the same day. More than 108,000 people were hospitalized with COVID-19. But the flu is almost nonexistent in the US, and experts are no longer worried about a twindemic.

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Coronavirus safety measures might have stopped a 2020 flu outbreak originally appeared on BGR.com on Mon, 14 Dec 2020 at 17:49:22 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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