This year’s flu shot will be missing a strain of influenza it’s protected against for more than a decade.

That’s because there have been no confirmed flu cases caused by the Influenza B/Yamagata lineage since spring 2020. And the Food and Drug Administration decided this year that the strain now poses little to no threat to human health.

Scientists have concluded that widespread physical distancing and masking practiced during the early days of COVID-19 appear to have pushed B/Yamagata into oblivion.

  • @[email protected]
    28•1 month ago

    Not thanks to Covid, but rather to the brief period in which masking and social distancing were widely enforced.

    • @[email protected]
      13•1 month ago

      I remember getting into arguments with people about what germ theory is and how it works because they couldn’t understand stats and graphs. They were saying “see masks and social distance doesn’t do anything. Literally nothing. Look this charts shows that the regular flu went down during covid-19. Doesn’t that mean something?”

      Like “yeah, it means social distancing and putting on masks slow the spread of germs. That was why we were wearing them remember? That whole flatten the curve thing.”

      “No I thought it was to not get sick at all.”

      “Nope, just to slow the spread. I’m not sure where you get your news, but it seemed clear to me.”

      " Well so and so did whatever and got sick so nothing preventative worked."

      “If nothing preventative worked then we wouldn’t have seen this spread staring to slow down when compared to other countries that didn’t implement x, y, or z. Also it slowed the spread of the flu because that’s how germs work.”

      • Flying Squid
        9•1 month ago

        These are also people who also think ‘vaccinated’ = ‘100% immune from a disease and its effects.’

        “So it’s not a vaccine!”