Quote Originally Posted by BCram View Post
Needing to get some clarity on the covid cases found and why the R number was changed to 20 deaths per 100000 as the critical guideline for travel rules etc. Also if washing your hands and self isolating for covid works how do the scientists think these actions will affect flu? Could be much lower than normal flu cases, and it won't be because of a major increase in vaccinations because the volumes ordered for this winter were placed before covid outbreak, I believe.
There was an article in the Sunday Times which reported that the number of flu cases in New Zealand during their current winter period has been very low which one GP reporting that he has not seen a patient with the flu since last June.
In fact the number of flu cases has been so low that the scientists in New Zealand are very concerned that they will not be able to produce a vaccine for the 2021 flu season in New Zealand.
Scientists try each year to guess which strain the flu virus will be next year and to produce a vaccine combat it.
Sadly this does not always work as during the 2017-18 winter flu season in the U.K. the scientists picked the wrong strain of virus to defeat which resulted in the flu vaccine for that period being no use.