Post 407 is what got me thinking about this:
Somehow this ***** has told all other disease processes to get out of town.
How much of that is COVID-19 interrupting other diseases on a cellular(?) level, and how much are the other diseases being better prevented due to social distancing, increased hand washing, etc.?
My guess is that there will be a period in each area when modest efforts to control COVID-19 result in a drop in positive flu tests even as COVID-19 ramps up. PART of the latter is likely due to tests "catching up" with the backlog of infections.
Deaths from flu vs. deaths from COVID-19, adjusted for duration of each case for likely date of infection, and then observed vs. level of control efforts, might be even more "illuminating", as that would eliminate the distortion of test results catching up with the backlog of tests needed.
I'll further guess that even when testing is fully "caught up", controls sufficient to lower the rate of COVID-19 infections will be shown to suppress flu much more: Another demonstration of the higher infectiousness of COVID-19.
If flu and other contagious diseases potentially resulting in hospitalizations (esp. for vulnerable folks) actually drop in numbers due to controls aimed at COVID-19, that buys a little ICU capacity. My guess is that it will only equate to a day or two in time, but it should still save lives. This much more so if ICU and ventilator capacity is not exceeded by total needs.
It will be interesting to see. You are probably right about the secondary effect on flu and similar contagious diseases. But it also seems to have an acceleration effect on chronic conditions.
“You got ten years left on your Diabetes clock? Nah. You can go to the front of the line. You with the heart disease - you’re outta here!”
I wonder what its interaction with cancer is. Killed that kid with leukemia pretty quick.