[StAnDeliver]

"The rest of the world already took the major hit. Only China had the means to literally lock people indoors for years by shutting down and sealing of people and entire cities. The rest of us were asked to shelter in place, but we’ve been open for the last year. Most of the severe damage to the rest of the world has been done. It remains to be seen if China’s experiment with literally locking people away will have worked or if they will experience a massive surge in cases and deaths among the sick."

Uh, uh, I think you answered your good post. What is probably gleefully adding to China's calumny is that many of the shut-ins were also not exposed to regular influenza for the past two flu seasons, and this Type A H1N1 resurgence is oddly ignoring its last vector in 2012 (under-20) and instead going whole hog in the 25-55 vector -- which is a little weird, given that the first half of that vector should have 'aged-up' with immunity from the 2012 strain. Hmmm.

[monkeyshine]

Haven’t followed the influenza cases too closely, just saw some bits of news earlier this winter that cases were high and the “triple threat” of flu, RSV and Covid. Hard to tell how much of the news was fear porn, how much is real, or how serious it is. Unfortunately the establishment has lost too much medical credibility with me. Some said it was due to lack of natural immunity - too much santizing, masking, and sheltering for two years made us more vulnerable now. You do bring up a good point though that the flu strains change each year. I don’t know if this one is more severe than average. Anecdotally, I know a lot of people personally who have told me of various flu-like ailments. Some told me “I have Covid” but I don’t think they actually tested for it they just have symptoms. Some lasting quite a while. Again hard to tell how much of that is really viral, or just people’s brains wired to be extra sensitive to symptoms.