eugyppius

Its probably real. Cold and flu medicine sales were way down.

That's probably b/c ppl resolved themselves to the notion that those wouldn't work b/c they have Covid, and people were not going to leave their house if they were sick, which is usually when cold/flu meds are purchased--there didn't used to be stigma against this.

Is that probable or wildly speculative? People had bad cold/flu symptoms and didn't want nyquil because they assumed congestion treatment was targeted at a particular virus? Sales in late 2020 were down 46% from 2019.

Ppl weren't going out to buy congestion treatment when they had congestion for fear of transmitting to others--the reason why is hardly speculative--and ppl don't typically go buy cold/flu meds til they already have cold/flu, OR they already have it and won't leave to get more.

You think they did in fact, have the flu at the same rates as always, just bought half as much medicine while the CDC, using a completely unrelated method estimates a similar drop in flu? Seems unlikely to me, but I can't prove you're wrong.

I think ppl by and large weren’t going to the doc’s office if they were alrdy sick and weren’t going to stores to buy flu meds if they were already sick. With a flu-like illness going around you shouldn’t have seen something so massive as 46% dropoff. CDC flu ests. arent rigorous

We know from flu surveillance that flu is basically gone, or present at extremely low incidences, everywhere, except for a few places in the tropics. The catch is, it’s even gone in places without lockdowns or significant measures (Japan).

What’s more, flu surveillance in many countries also tracks other respiratory virus, like RSV, Adenovirus, etc. Many of these *do* seem more frequent in places with less containment, and more seldom in places with heavier containment.