Apparently, a strain of influenza, B/Yamagata, went extinct, perhaps because of COVID. Go figure.

  • notfromhere@lemmy.one
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    Just speculating but I think the social distancing and mask wearing during covid is what made that strain of influenza go extinct.

    • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      1 year ago

      Oh for sure … by “lockdown” I’m referring to the general suite of civil measures including masks etc … basically anything other than a vaccine or preventative medicine.

      And of course, an additional dimension here is that influenza is no slouch of a virus … eradicating the flu would be significant for public health. So to my mind, kinda accidentally eradicating a strain of it should be a big “huh … how did we do that again?” rather than just “now we need to adjust our vaccines”.

      • Haui@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Thanks for posting this. Most I read about these days is how it has never made any dent scientifically but maybe I‘m getting sucked into propaganda there.

        • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          What has never made a dent scientifically? The lockdowns during the pandemic? I mean that’s demonstrably false … fewer people got the virus without without the protection of a vaccine because of them. And some places managed to eradicate the virus with them, which saddens me because if we’d managed to limit infections and the amount of mutations and variants until vaccines came through, we could be in a different world now. Like, COVID could be extinct and no one talks about it.

          • Haui@discuss.tchncs.de
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            1 year ago

            I‘m actually not even sure where I heard this. Good that you mention it now. I‘ll be on the lookout. This is why it’s important to talk about stuff every now and then.