"Seasonal Flu" -- A Thing Of The Past -- Our Grandchildren Will Never See "Seasonal Flu" Again -- April 13, 2021

I quit following this year's "seasonal flu" statistics many months ago but after seeing the "cartoon graphic" earlier today, I had to fact-check the data myself. 

This is from the CDC. 

This is week 40 of this year's "seasonal flu" season which began September 27, 2020, and will continue through week 52, but the "seasonal flu" season is over for all intents and purposes for this year, 2020 - 2021. 

This is truly bizarre. There is no other word to describe it 

This year, so far, into week 40, cumulative data from September 27, 2020:

• number of people tested for "seasonal flu': 860,095
• number of people that tested positive: 1,710 (0.2%)

Let's repeat that.

Technically it's the number of specimens tested. Some people were tested more than once obviously,

• but the total number of specimens tested: 860,095
• the total number of specimens that tested positive for "seasonal flu": 1,710 (0.2%).

As a reader noted: it's clear that masks and social distancing is all we need to combat "seasonal flu." 

That annual "flu shot"? So yesterday. Can't ever imagine having to get it again. [Note: I haven't had a "flu shot" since I retired from the military in 2007. I'm just doing my part to save some money for Medicare and Tricare.]

I'm not being facetious: if the reader is correct, that all we need to do is wear masks and stay six feet apart to pretty much eliminate the "flu," why bother with a shot? With Covid-19, even after being vaccinated, the CDC recommends continued masking and social distancing. 

But does anyone really believe that only 1,710 Americans "caught" the "flu" this past year? LOL.That's what the CDC is telling us. Last year, 2019 - 2020, before Covid-19 became a thing? At least 18 million outpatient medical visits for flu-like illnesses.

Here's the final 2019 - 2020 data, one year earlier, link here:

• one of the worst years ever (see graphic at the linked article);
• hospitalization rate was 69 cases per 100,000 people
• cases: at least 18 million medical visits;
• hospitalizations: at least 410,000
• compare that with 1,710 specimens that tested positive this year, 2020 - 2021
• worst flu season for children in a decade, for the 2019 - 2020 season;
• 170 pediatric deaths associated with the "flu"
  

The graphics:

To paraphrase a character in an old Columbo episode: "Where DID all those flu cases go?"

No one has the answers. I don't have the answers, but when no one is even asking what happened to "seasonal flu" that pretty much tells me all I need to know.