One, among many, foolish beliefs that arose during the pandemic is the belief that if an intervention doesn’t completely stop transmission, it’s not worth doing. The idea that fewer sick people (from anything, not just COVID) is apparently too quantitative a concept for some to comprehend. With that, I give you this reminder that we can greatly limit the spread of infectious diseases, self-proclaimed experts, including Supreme Court judges, notwithstanding:
Realistically, we won’t have another year with one pediatric influenza death, but we could knock that down to low double digits. And we could have a vaccine for that (boldface mine):
Stay-at-home orders, border closures, mask-wearing and other measures aimed at stemming Covid-19’s spread led to the global disappearance of a notorious winter germ. Now, scientists say it might be feasible with better vaccines to rid the world of a second one.
For decades, flu epidemics were driven by four strains. One of them, the so-called Yamagata-lineage of type B influenza, was struggling to compete before the pandemic and hasn’t been seen since March 2020, said Ian Barr, deputy director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center for Reference and Research on Influenza in Melbourne…
Unlike type A influenza, which has a broad host range and risks causing pandemics, B strains lack an animal reservoir and might be more readily snuffed out with better vaccines that not only protect against getting sick, but also prevent transmission, scientists wrote in a paper last week in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.
On average, the strains together account for 23% of annual influenza cases globally — including 1.4 million hospitalizations — and about $1.3 billion in health-care costs in the US alone each year.
We could do this, if we wanted. Returning to the previous normal isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.
mikethemadbiologist