Free Republic

NEW YORK - February is usually the peak of flu season, with doctors’ offices and hospitals packed with suffering patients. But not this year. Flu has virtually disappeared from the U.S., with reports coming in at far lower levels than anything seen in decades. Experts say that measures put in place to fend off the coronavirus — mask wearing, social distancing and virtual schooling — were a big factor in preventing a “twindemic” of flu and COVID-19. A push to get more people vaccinated against flu probably helped, too, as did fewer people traveling, they say. Another possible explanation: The...

........... But in the fact-challenged world of the coronavirus COVID-19, there are still actual facts out there, and Fox News analyst hit a homer with a single post on Twitter. “As the number of cases has expanded, the mortality rate has declined. It will likely decline even further if and when those without symptoms can be diagnosed and counted,” Hume tweeted. He included a tweet from another Twitter user that laid out the death rate in the U.S. from COVID-19. 4.06% March 8 (22 deaths of 541 cases) 3.69% March 9 (26 of 704) 3.01% March 10 (30 of 994)...

We assessed public health use of R0, the basic reproduction number, which estimates the speed at which a disease is capable of spreading in a population. These estimates are of great public health interest, as evidenced during the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) virus pandemic.We reviewed methods commonly used to estimate R0, examined their practical utility, and assessed how estimates of this epidemiological parameter can inform mitigation strategy decisions.In isolation, R0 is a suboptimal gauge of infectious disease dynamics across populations; other disease parameters may provide more useful information. Nonetheless, estimation of R0 for a particular population is useful for understanding...