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Influenza cases are 85% down across 17 countries

Border closures and Quarantine appear to be reducing all respiratory diseases

It’s a striking pattern all over the world. Measures taken to reduce the spread of Covid have, not surprisingly, reduced the spread of all respiratory diseases.

Influenza infections, 17 nations, WHO data

This years flu season is smaller than the last five years

Good news: due to the pandemic it’s likely many people are not catching Influenza and other respiratory diseases.This shows a rather  predictable result that quarantine reduces the spread of respiratory diseases. It’s a banal and uncontroversial finding.

Chris Gillham is a part of the unofficial BOM audit team here, and below he looks at WHO data across 17 countries for Influenza. (The WHO Chief of course is a belt-n-debt-trap apologist for China, but this is not their modeled interpretation, just the data). Laboratory indicated influenza cases are down an astonishing 87% in 17 nations compared to the five year period.

Quarantine is textbook microbiology, and for most of history, the best way to reduce the spread of disease. In many countries 12 days after major isolation measures started, viral growth flattened off the dreaded exponential curve. Despite that, some commentators still wonder if the lockdowns achieve anything for Coronavirus. And so it is, that we reach this strange point in the debate, where it is worth stating the blandly obvious: that lockdowns slow the spread of respiratory viruses. This is not to say they are cheap, just effective.

Some argue that “coronavirus cases are inflated”, and in the pandemic fog some deaths no doubt are. But the big-picture is writ in the all-cause-mortality data which shows the opposite. In cities where Coronavirus is known to kill many, the deaths are far higher than even the confirmed coronavirus deaths — possibly 60% higher. And we know that Coronavirus causes massive clotting, leading to strokes, heart disease, and pulmonary embolism. Far from overestimating the deaths from Coronavirus, many deaths are going unrecorded, as people die in homes without even getting tested. Contrary to this, deaths due to influenza are often inflated, with modeled, statistical estimates of the “burden” raising the death tolls from 3,000-15,000 up to “60,000”.

Time to move the debate along

Instead of asking if lockdowns work, we should be talking about which aspects are the most cost effective. The more effective the lockdown is, the shorter it needs to run. We also need to ask why anyone (especially the US and the UK) would lock up their citizens but allow foreigners to fly in through airports, and not even bother to enforce the quarantine. Why are so many nations paying the expense of a lockdown, but not doing the cheap masks and Vitamin D options? It’s almost like the Expert Swamp doesn’t want to eliminate the virus…

The US and UK are flying into a perfect storm. To anyone who wants to find a way out of The Virus Trap, and wants the economy to fly again, keep an open mind and your eye on the target (and the target is not the people who also want the same thing you do).

A healthy economy starts with a healthy population. When there is a deadly new virus around, worried citizens don’t want to eat out, send their kids to school, or get a new Gucci. Nor do they want to lock up the 60+ group, or lose 1 in 10 grandparents. The best way to restart the economy is to get rid of the virus, which is exactly what most rich western nations are doing. The few that aren’t may get stuck in the slow bleed option where neither the people, nor the economy, are healthy.

Because no one stopped the Virus-Flights in February, with a new unknown disease spreading rapidly, the lockdowns were the only choice. Now, in countries tracking to zero, they’re being lifted. It’s time to restore manufacturing, national borders, and get back to work. If only the US and UK didn’t knobble their own lockdowns…

— Jo

PS: In comments it would be useful if people could be polite, well mannered, and logical.

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Are COVID lockdowns suppressing other diseases?

Guest Post by Chris Gillham
Influenza data from the World Health Organization hints at a reduction of almost 90% in global infections of communicable diseases, the only sensible explanation being social distancing lockdowns imposed to target the COVID-19 virus.
The WHO website provides influenza laboratory surveillance information from most countries, although not all of them keep their notifications up to date. It’s not know how they reflect on actual flu numbers in each country’s community but it’s assumed there’s a correlation since the WHO publishes the data and keeps it fairly current.
Spotlight on 17 countries
I chose 17 countries, partly because of their population size, partly because of the media attention they’ve attracted over the past few weeks of the COVID-19 crisis, and partly based on whether or not they’ve supplied adequately up-to-date weekly reports within the timeframe.
His analysis starts in week 14 of 2019 and goes to week 18 of 2020, which was the end of April.
This allows a comparison of positive flu tests in the 17 countries from week 14 to week 18 of both 2019 and 2020. The most recent WHO notification from the US at the time of analysis was week 14.
Firstly, the 11 countries that had flu test results from week 14 2019 through to week 18 2020 …
Influenza infections, 17 nations, WHO data

The difference in influenza rates one year apart in 11 countries

Compare the first five columns with the last five columns in the above graphic and it’s pretty clear that a lot fewer people in those 11 countries have this year had the sniffles, a cough or potentially died from influenza.
It’s worth magnifying the figures during those five week blocks …
Influenza infections, 17 nations, WHO data

That’s an 88.0% reduction in positive laboratory influenza test notifications from 11 countries.
I added three more countries which had recent positive influenza test notifications up to week 17 2020 …
Influenza infections, 17 nations, WHO data

That’s a 92.6% reduction in positive laboratory influenza test notifications from 14 countries.
To include the US, all 17 countries can be compared in week 14 of 2019 and 2020 …
Influenza infections, 17 nations, WHO data

That’s a 90.9% reduction in positive laboratory influenza test notifications from 17 countries.
It’s worth running a magnifying glass over some of the 17 countries …
Australia weeks 14-18 2019 : 852
Australia weeks 14-18 2020 : 29
Down 96.6%
US week 14 2019 : 6,903
US  week 14 2020 : 215
Down 96.9%
UK weeks 14-18 2019 : 2,262
UK weeks 14-18 2020 : 49
Down 97.8%
China weeks 14-17 2019 : 9,250
China weeks 14-17 2020 : 63
Down 99.3%
Japan weeks 14-16 2019 : 449
Japan weeks 14-16 2020 : 2
Down 99.6%
Spain weeks 14-18 2019 : 1,541
Spain weeks 14-18 2020 : 67
Down 95.4%
Russia weeks 14-18 2019 : 926
Russia weeks 14-18 2020 : 924
Down 0.2%
The Russian results are interesting because Putin didn’t seriously enforce a lockdown until late March. But look at the Russian flu trend since week 14 this year …
Week 14 2020 – 537
Week 15 2020 – 231
Week 16 2020 – 99
Week 17 2020 – 47
Week 18 2020 – 10
Flu cases can be expected to decrease as the weather warms in Russia, but the 10 positive lab tests in week 18 of 2020 compares with an average 216 in week 18 of the previous six years.
However, the UK and USA have been criticised for a relatively slow lockdown reaction to COVID-19, and Sweden had a 95.7% reduction in positive influenza test results comparing weeks 14-18 in 2019 and 2020 (1,541 > 67) despite only a partial lockdown.
It’s difficult to draw clear conclusions from these early WHO flu figures, but laboratory influenza test results from most countries indicate that social isolation has suppressed the spread of communicable diseases other than COVID-19. It’s a bit hard to argue that the lockdowns haven’t affected the spread of COVID-19 when other diseases such as the common flu have been affected.
What about earlier years?
Annual influenza numbers can be erratic, so what if weeks 14 to 18 2019 were particular high so their 2020 equivalents aren’t anomalously low?
I scooped up all the WHO data in weeks 14 to 18 from 2014 to 2020 in the 17 countries to compare their totals.
Influenza infections, 17 nations, WHO data

 

2014-2019 averages for weeks 14-18 in 11 countries = 10,432 vs 1,550 in 2020 – an 85.1% reduction.

 

Influenza infections, 17 nations, WHO data

2014-2019 averages for weeks 14-17 in 14 countries = 14,820 vs 1,572 in 2020 – an 89.4% reduction.
Influenza infections, 17 nations, WHO data

2014-2019 averages for week 14 in 17 countries = 9,166 vs 1,164 in 2020 – an 87.3% reduction.
Potential lockdown benefits
These positive influenza test results out of global laboratories aren’t necessarily a direct reflection of how many people are suffering or spreading the flu in China, the UK, etc, although it’s hard to interpret them as anything but an influenza reduction in those communities.
So consider, if you will, a report in mid February 2020 about influenza infection in the US
Currently, there have been 13 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 in the United States, yet flu cases for the 2019-20 US season have topped 22 million. This is an increase of 4 million cases over the span of 1 week.
 
The last 3 weeks of surveillance indicate that flu activity continues to increase and is expected to continue for weeks to come.
 
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) FluView reports that last week the percentage of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza stands at 7.1%, just below the epidemic threshold of 7.2%.
 
The percentage of respiratory specimens testing positive for influenza at clinical laboratories also increased last week, rising from 28.4% to 29.8%. At this time, 47 jurisdictions are experiencing high influenza-like illness activity, compared with 44 jurisdictions the previous week.
 
Recent estimates indicate that of the 22 million flu cases in the US thus far, 210,000 hospitalizations have occurred, and 12,000 deaths have been reported. In total, there have been 78 pediatric deaths so far this season, with 10 new deaths reported last week.
That was mid-February. According to the WHO data above, the US specimens testing positive for influenza at clinical laboratories were just 215 in late March/early May this year, compared to 6,903 in the same week of 2019.
Think about 22 million and then think about a 96.9% reduction in positive laboratory influenza tests. Interesting.

The Lockdown Argument

Analysis of non-COVID disease rates isn’t a judgement of whether or not governments should have imposed social and economic lockdowns to control the virus, although it adds a new dimension to the debate.

A popular argument is that doctors are assuming COVID is the cause of many deaths even though they may be due to other respiratory diseases such as influenza.

It seems an odd argument that people keeping their distance, wearing face masks, washing their hands frequently, etc, to suppress the spread of a disease doesn’t work either on the target virus COVID-19 or on other communicable pathogens.

Some critics of lockdowns are even claiming that doctors and hospitals have a financial incentive to report more coronavirus deaths. This analysis involves 17 countries, almost all of which show a similar trend despite completely different health funding systems, and it’s unlikely all their figures are similarly biased because there’s a dollar to be made.

Alternatively, there might be an argument that influenza and other respiratory disease cases have dropped because people are scared to attend GP clinics and EDs for fear of COVID-19 infection.

Australia’s National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (http://www9.health.gov.au/cda/source/rpt_1_sel.cfm) reports on total cases of 67 diseases apart from COVID-19 (including hepatitis, salmonella, tuberculosis, Ross River Virus, syphilis and including influenza) …
April 2019 – 40,482
April 2020 – 14,077
May 2019 – 55,003
To 13 May 2020 – 3,091
According to the ABS, Australia had 3,102 deaths from influenza/pneumonia in 2018 and 1,255 deaths solely from influenza in 2017.
At the time of writing this, Australia had a COVID-19 death toll of 98.
Is it possible that COVID-19, or the lockdown reaction to it, has been a lifesaver – at least in Australia?
Public health a winner
The WHO influenza results cover about 36% of the world’s population from 17 different countries.
So an argument can be put that if positive laboratory influenza tests are a reasonably accurate reflection of infection percentages and trends in their broader communities, and if influenza can be considered an infection rate indicator of the several dozen other communicable diseases, the COVID-19 lockdowns have resulted in a ~90% reduction in global infections.
These are early days and it may be presumptuous to draw conclusions from the WHO flu data, but COVID-19 has provided a unique global isolation experiment to gauge what happens to numerous other infectious diseases (e.g. meningococcal, hepatitis, cholera, tuberculosis, malaria, syphilis, whooping cough, measles, meningitis, dengue, ebola, tetanus, etc).
It seems likely that many people will maintain social distancing practices when lockdowns are lifted, at least while the COVID memory lingers, and the WHO influenza figures suggest that several months of isolation might provide broader public health benefits than just keeping COVID-19 under control.
Cheers!
Chris
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Things worth knowing about Coronavirus:

UPDATE 2022: Headline and subheading changed. “Border closures” added, and lockdown changed to quarantine.

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