cross-posted from: https://lemmy.crimedad.work/post/22390
Apparently, a strain of influenza, B/Yamagata, went extinct, perhaps because of COVID. Go figure.
Crazy what happens when people wash their hands and stay inside when sick
Imagine if they also masked… and kept doing it even after COVID is “gone” (aka: killing fewer people).
Earlier this week, I had to catch a bus and go to a clinic to get my blood work done. Plenty of coughing and sneezing people in both places, and other than the office workers, I was the only one wearing a mask.
It truly feels like most people learned absolutely nothing in the past several years
While it really does feel like it, as a person working in healthcare, I do see some change after the whole shitstorm from recent years.
- There are people who actually wear a mask, few, but they are around.
- A lot more people seem to be conscious of spreading their illness to other people be it a cold or COVID.
- People definitely wash their hands more often. I know we do.
- Some people started getting their annual shots when they didn’t intend to before.
- Local businesses open their windows and doors a lot more than they used to.
But also I also see some negative tendencies:
- Interest in flu shots has waned. That might have something to do with the govt introducing a free flu shot programme from your GP if you’re above 65 or with specific conditions (which is a great thing) But I definitely see a lot more vaxx-scepticism and fear of combining both shots (infant vaccination plans are a lot more intense and the vast majority are fine).
- People politicising a disease.
- This is country specific but food supplement companies aggressively promoting “immune system stimulants” to the point where in the beginning of The Plague™ they somehow managed to include them in hospital treatment plans.
This came out longer than intended but there were some things that I needed to get out of my system.
I’m glad there are positive changes, and obviously those are most effective in healthcare situations.
However, from my personal experience as a university student in Canada, everything is the same if not worse than before. Hand sanitizer stations have been removed or simply not refilled, people straight up refuse to wear masks even when they’re sick. A week or two ago in class, I saw many people literally sneeze into their hands and then wipe the snot on their chairs (and these are supposed to be engineering students!). There is still no ventilation or even filtration in any of our classrooms.
Not only is personal protective equipment not used by almost anyone, its use is actively stigmatized by many, including professors at school. To me this is completely ridiculous, but unfortunately reality.
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Vaccine advisors for the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously (12 to 0) Thursday to remove, “as soon as possible,” a component of annual flu shots that targets a strain of the virus that appears to have gone extinct amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The missing strain is the influenza type B Yamagata lineage (aka B/Yamagata), one of only four flu viruses targeted by annual vaccines.
There have been no confirmed detections of B/Yamagata worldwide since March 2020, when the pandemic coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, erupted onto the global scene, dramatically disrupting the lives of people and other viruses everywhere.
While other strains and lineages of influenza have since rebounded and are moving back to their normal seasonal cycles, B/Yamagata is still unaccounted for.
Thus, keeping B/Yamagata in vaccines poses a risk of reintroducing the virus to people if a mishap occurs during production.
Makers of those quadrivalent vaccines still technically have licenses for trivalent formulas, an FDA official said in the meeting today.
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