Not a single official case of influenza has been registered with the RIVM this winter. The measures against corona appear to keep influenza at bay.
Last week, 7 out of 100,000 people visited their GP with flu symptoms. These are fewer than usual and well below the 60 limit required for a flu epidemic. While in other years this period was precisely the moment when the number of infections increased, this year the number of complaints is steadily decreasing.
Samples were taken from the people who came forward to see what was wrong with them. Of the ten subjects examined last week, two had the rhinovirus. One patient was found to have corona, but out of ten, none had one of the five influenza variants monitored.
Distorted
Even in previous weeks, no official flu cases were identified in the sample, which is held in about 40 GP practices. Last year there was already a remarkably mild epidemic. In 2018, there were just about 150 people who reported complaints this week.
The RIVM warns that the figures may be distorted by the pandemic. Many GPs have adjusted their work due to corona. In addition, most people with flu-like symptoms are not tested at the GP, but in a GGD test street.
International air traffic
In the AD a spokesman for knowledge institute Nivel says that the corona measures have stopped the flu. “We do not follow the influenza virus as well as the coronavirus, but everything indicates that the circulation of influenza has stopped. We do not find it in the samples from the GPs and the virus is not found at the hospitals either.”
According to the experts, the largely halt in international air traffic slowed the spread of the virus. Also, more people got a flu shot this year. In addition, frequent hand washing and distance make the virus more difficult to spread.
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