From my perspective working in a hospital, influenza infections basically went away once all the social distancing/mask/etc. went into place while COVID infections continued showing up at a regular pace. We are testing for both in almost every patient that presents to the ER with symptoms.
What I get from that is influenza is less virulent and less contagious than COVID.
Is your hospital recording the percentage of those tested that have already had a flu shot (or two) this season?
If so, how much do you think that might be affecting your facility's flu rates vs The Corona rates?
No, because you would give someone with flu symptoms a flu test regardless of whether they had the vaccine or not. It's fairly consistent from year to year the number of positive tests overall. This year since March has been far less than normal. Many of our positives are from people who had the vaccine anyway (shocker, right).
I am in no way saying my observations are scientific. Just what I am actually observing this year as compared to the last 28 years working in a hospital. Could be a lot of things, but whatever it is, we rarely see a positive influenza test now. We are testing for influenza at the same rate as usual and for whatever reason are seeing far less positives. We have seen quite a few positive COVID patients and for the most part symptoms are mild and short lived, except for the mostly overweight diabetics, and they're taking it hard.
