Quote:
Originally Posted by john70t
Everything that works so well for the flu virus doesn't work with Covid? um okay. But isn't Covid classified as a type of flu?
How can two similar diseases create such opposing results when the exact same reduction methods are applied?
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I explained it. The ease of spread. Every flu case spreads to about 2 others. Vaccines lower that to about 1.5 , Alpha covid at 3. Delta at 5. That makes a tremendous difference in how fast they spread.
Flu 1 case to 2. 2 to 4. 4 to 8. 8 to 16. 16 to 32
Alpah 1 to 3. 3 to 9. 9 to 27. 27 to 81. 91 to 243
Delta 1 to 5. 5 to 25. 25 to 125. 125 to 625. 625 to 3125.
To stop that dramatic increase in spread the R0 needs to below an R1.
The flu vaccine drops it to an R1.5 (or there about). All of the social distancing and masking/hygiene, lower air travel, remote learning schools, limited large gatherings combined drops it another 1/3. At or below an R1. It never gets a foothold.
When Alpha was at an R3 and no vaccine the same 1/3 reduction drops it to an R2. It continued to spread exponentially. When the vaccines took hold we could see the dramatic drop in new cases (past infection and vaccine)
Highly transmittable Delta at R5 with a less effective vaccine against the variant and opening economies resulted in a fast growth in cases.
It is simply far more easily spread covid vs the flu (32/243/3125) and less face to face contact that decimated the flu's ability to spread that only slowed covid, though not enough to stop it in it's tracks like the less infective flu.