“Medicos aren’t testing for it.
Not true.”
Presuming ‘nurse’ is not a euphemism, you are part of the problem with misinformation out of the medical community, starting with the top officials in the country, flittering down through the AMA to local doctors & nurses. Most of the nurses I deal with on a daily basis nod & wink in agreement with my aspersions regarding response to the ‘virus crisis.’
Just because health departments are counting ‘a number’ of influenza tests does not necessarily make your statement factual. To clarify, your statement is propaganda.
The numbers for my state do not lie:
SARS-CoV-2 tests in total: 3,526,219
https://govstatus.egov.com/OR-OHA-COVID-19
Influenza tests in total: 2928
Do the math:
Influenza testing comprises less than 0.1% of those tested for SARS-CoV-2 and - worse - less than 1% of those who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.
The answer may not be 100% in agreement with mewzilla’s statement, but your statement is grossly more misleading and closer to being absolutely false by an order of magnitude.
We can ‘presume’ that positive-tested coronavirus hospitalizations were also tested for influenza, but the point of my comment is neither to cast aspersions on your comment nor the medical community in that regard (mincing numbers when there are much greater battles).
The point of my comment is to point out what should be patently obvious given the subject matter of the OP:
If masking et al has practically eliminated influenza cases, then the elimination of influenza is prima facie evidence that masking et al are wholly-ineffective at defeating SARS-CoV-2 spread.
Thus, along with recent study results regarding asymptomatic spread (not), continued ‘mitigation measures’ are criminal misdeeds and all who support them are domestic enemies, deserved of righteous punishment.
If THAT statement casts aspersions upon the medical community, SO BE IT.
I have NOTHING good to say about those in “M&M” at large. The ‘news’ about influenza should make everyone in medicine hang their head in shame as they preside - shoulder-to-shoulder with overreaching politicians & bureaucrats - over the greatest crisis in US history (and it AIN’T a ‘virus crisis’).
That said, testing for influenza historically and currently occurs only in symptomatic patients with respiratory/myalgia/fatigue complaints. CoV testing has been encouraged by the government wonks for all people, symptomatic or not. Widespread CoV testing was intended in the early stages of the pandemic to obtain a baseline for population penetration. Today, I can't think of a reason for widespread CoV testing of the asymptomatic general population.
Influenza is less contagious than CoV. This was recognized in the early stages of the CoV pandemic a year ago. It is still true today. Efforts to mitigate CoV spread have been remarkably successful for tamping down the spread of influenza this season.