Not a single official case of influenza has been registered with the RIVM this winter. The measures against corona therefore mainly keep the flu at bay. While the measures aim to get the figures on corona low. But every day there are thousands of corona cases, dozens of deaths and hospitalizations.
Last week, only 7 in 100,000 people visited their GP with flu symptoms. That is much less than before the corona restrictions. There is an annual flu epidemic. That’s when the limit of sixty out of 100,000 flu infections is broken. Currently, the number of infections is mainly decreasing. While this period of the year is usually the time when there is often a flu epidemic.
Of the people who report to the GP with complaints, measurements of the ten people who were examined last week, two had the rhinovirus. One patient had corona and none had any of the five flu variants.
Distorted
The RIVM warns that the figures may be distorted by the pandemic. Many GPs have adjusted their work due to corona. In addition, most people with flu-like symptoms are not tested at the GP, but in a GGD test street. Result of the laboratory examination. Besides Corona (SARS-CoV-2), only the Rhinovirus is often found. Flu (Influenza) appears to be absent.
Hospitals also test patients with flu-like symptoms. Because there they naturally also want to know whether the lung complaints are caused by a bacteria or a virus. That is important for the treatment. Antiviral drugs must be administered for a virus and antibiotics for a bacterium.
But why is there no flu, and why is there corona? The first explanation: flu is unpredictable, one year it goes faster than another year. “Sometimes you have a slack winter.”
The second explanation: all measures against corona also work very well against the flu. “We keep our distance from each other, have fewer contacts, we wash our hands and are no longer sitting on the train.”
The fact that corona does spread and the flu doesn’t, that’s because the flu is less contagious – that’s the theory.
And so we come to the third explanation: because many people are vaccinated against the flu, there is even less chance that the virus can spread.
Source: ANP & RIVM
–
