China's COVID-19 surge raises odds of new coronavirus mutant

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[–]Insider 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Funny thing is that you think you know better.

The premise of that nurse's point was that COVID has a higher r0 and transmission rate than the flu. Soft measures like masks and social distancing were effective against limiting spread of the flu, but it wasn't as effective against COVID. Thus more COVID cases, less flu cases.

There is both hospital-level and nation-wide level of evidence for this phenomenon in several countries. Pull out data from the Asian countries where their population had better compliance with COVID measures at the beginning.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Soft measures like masks and social distancing were effective against limiting spread of the flu

Masks have not been shown to be effective at preventing the spread of airborne viruses, only bacteria. And the social distancing caused a temporary reduction in flu cases at the cost of lowered immunity from isolation, which is driving the surge we are now seeing in flu, rsv, strep and other infections.

African countries didn't do any of those things, and they had far lower rates of infection and death than highly compliant countries like Israel, and those in Europe

But yes, you are correct that social distancing + a higher r0 virus temporarily led to fewer flu cases, with a few caveats