From: usenet@only.tnx   
      
   On Tue, 03 Nov 2020 13:58:01 -0800, Snidely  wrote:   
   >Questor noted that:   
   >>On Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:58:56 -0700, Snidely  wrote:   
   >>>Beaver Fever suggested that ...   
   >>>>Got an automated call from Walgreen telling me to come in and get one.   
   >>>>Should  I?   
   >>>   
   >>>Unless you're self-isolating, it's probably a good idea.  Especially as   
   >>>you get older and your immune system runs at a lower level.  Continuing   
   >>>to wear masks and to wash your hands should help, but defense-in-depth   
   >>>sounds good to me.   
   >>   
   >>The experts keep warning about flu season, but if people are wearing masks   
   >>and "distancing" because of COVID-19, shouldn't that supress flus (and colds)   
   >>as well?   
   >   
   >Yes, but AIUI flu is more easily spread via touch, and not as dependent   
   >on aerosols as COVID-19.   
      
   A blurb from the February 26, 2021 The Week:   
      
   "While Covid-19 continues to infect tens of thousands of Americans every day,   
   another unusually rampant respiratory virus is almost nowhere to be seen:   
   influenza.  Since the fall, about 800,000 lab flu tests have been reported to   
   the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Only 1,500 have come back   
   positive, or .02 percent, an infection rate 100 times lower than it was 12   
   months ago.  In a typical year, hundreds of thousands of Americans are   
   hospitalized with the flu, but this season's tally was only 155 as of last   
   week.   
   And only one child has died from the flu so far this year, compared with 78 at   
   this point in 2020.  Scientists say the radical behavioral changes that   
   Americans have made during the pandemic -- such as social distancing, mask   
   wearing, and constant handwashing -- are largely responsible for this unusually   
   quiet flu season.  "Flu just tends to be a lot less transmissible [than   
   coronavirus], which means it's easier to suppress," says Shweta Bansal,   
   a disease ecologist at Georgetown University."   
      
   --   
   'Cause there's a fat man in the bathtub -- I hear you moan, I hear you moan,   
   I hear you moan...   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)