It seems it was already in Europe in November 2019
Indeed, and I am very sure it was around somewhere quite some months before that – because the rate of spread depends on
I would put money on 6-12 months before Dec 2019, for the very origin of it.
Case numbers aren’t a realistic assessment of the real spread, especially before there was a PCR test for the virus. I think it is very conceivable that some respiratory illness that mainly affected older people would be put down as a flu for quite some time. Hospitals have locally been overwhelmed many times in many places without anyone finding that particularly alarming.
Rwy20 wrote:
I think it is very conceivable that some respiratory illness that mainly affected older people would be put down as a flu for quite some time
According to the Mayer here in my little town; In 2019, 7 persons died of influenza. In 2020 and until now, nobody died of influenza or covid. From now on though people will start to die from influenza again and perhaps some due to covid. All old people in caring homes.
IMO the question still remains. When getting above a certain age and the body is hardly operating. What exactly are you dying from? A random disease, or old age?
LeSving wrote:
In 2019, 7 persons died of influenza. In 2020 and until now, nobody died of influenza or covid.
With the measures of social distancing in place, influenza almost did not exist in the season 2020/21. This clearly will have consequences once people stop doing that or snub flu shots. There may be a massive flu wave on the horizon the moment the Covid measures are relaxed and then it may get really dangerous for a while, as the initial symptoms are pretty much identical.
Hence it is probably not a bad idea to both keep measures going until spring and to encourage people to get the flu shot.
The flu vaccine doesn’t work very well though and I think this is why acceptance is not high. AFAIK the protection (from getting the actual illness) is around 50% CDC link and that partly assumes you got the “right” vaccine for this year’s strain. The main CV19 vaccines are dramatically better than this. Here in the UK most flu vaccine is given to old people.
Peter wrote:
… I think this is why acceptance is not high.
Numbers for efficacy of flu vaccination indeed show a huge spread – mainly due to the fact that “flu” is not a virus but rather a family of virus and the efficacy of the vaccination is depending on a) to choose the vaccine against the right virus in the first place and b) which virus it is (vaccinations against some flu viruses are singifficantly more effective than against others).
The question of acceptance, however, is a different one: Even in worst case data the flu vaccination reduces the risk of death by flu by more than 30%. If we look at what pilots invest in reducing the risk of death by MidAir collision or by engine failure (both lower than risk of death by flue) by less than 30% one would expect much higher acceptance for the basically free (in most countries) flue vaccination.
As with most vaccination related questions: Acceptance and uptake are much more driven by emotions than driven by facts.
What do you all think of this :
https://news.yahoo.com/sweden-pauses-moderna-covid-vaccine-113809877.html?
Jujupilote wrote:
What do you all think of this
Normal process: There is preliminary data that a medication/vaccine has a slightly worse safety profile than originally thought. As an alternative treatment/drug/vaccine is available with potentially better safety profile, it is normal (and right) to stop treatment and investigate.
Covid vaccine is no longer a very scarce resource – so we can afford to focus on the best amongst the available offers. It has been a different situation when the choice was still “Moderna or no vaccination at all” for some patients.
On CV19 origins, who does not becomes conspiracy theorist after this 
?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-coronavirus-lab-leak-virology-origins-pandemic-11633462827
https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-grant-darpa/
In the other hand, this was the most predictive research paper on “natural mutation risks due to wet markets mixing” (it was written in Sep 2019)
