eugyppius

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.

The one exception is rhinoviruses, which seem totally unaffected almost everywhere and circulate as in prior years. In summary: Other respiratory viruses do seem affected by measures; flu is different, it has disappeared almost worldwide independent of measures.

Any idea if basic repro number for common rhinoviruses is estimated to be higher than say ~3?

Various estimates put them around 1,5-2,5. This is probably where Corona is, btw— earlier crazy high estimates being an artefact of increasing test capacity. R is probably a very small part of the story here, viruses appear to have varying ‚strategies’ of transmission

Wiki says 2-3. What particularly weird is that cold supposedly pass via respiratory droplets. Are masks not even useful for this? Is germ theory wrong or something?

i’ve read most of the studies on rhinovirus transmission; estimates are generally lower than 3, but the quality of the research isn’t very good. It’s not a heavily studied topic.

Rhinoviruses don’t have an envelope and are thus more resilient, so it’s thought fomites are a more important vector. (In this case community masks could even increase the transmissibility.) It also seems huge numbers of people, maybe 25% of everyone ...