Good News Amongst The Gloom.
The impact of social distancing, mask wearing, increased hand hygiene and people staying at home has resulted in no deaths across Australia associated with influenza this winter. This information is according to the Australian Influenza Surveillance Reports issued fortnightly by the Department of Health.
Influenza is a virus which spreads from person to person, originating from birds or animals, such as pigs. The flu virus is shared across the globe thanks to air travel and changes each year causing new strains to circulate. Flu strains typically arrive in Australia from Southeast Asia – however not so much this year it seems!
The health department says, any interpretation of the latest data should take into account the impact of social distancing measures due to the Covid-19 pandemic, focused testing and “likely changes in health-seeking behaviour of the community, including access to alternative streams of acute respiratory infection specific health services”.
Covid-19 related public health measures and the community’s adherence to public health messages are, no doubt, influencing decreased transmission of acute respiratory infections, including influenza.
There’s always a spark in the darkness …
Editor Comment: Health data reported in report from 2019 issued by the Doherty Institute shows an average of 486 deaths related to Flu for the 2014-2019 seasons. The difference between the Covid figures and the annual flu figures is that an unchecked Covid would have continued and grown to enormous numbers as seen in many many other countries.
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