Did Masks Defeat The Flu?

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You’ve surely heard it said that the reason we haven’t seen much flu activity is that the efforts of our “public health” establishment (can’t type that term without the quotation marks) against COVID-19 had the happy side effect of suppressing inflenuza.

Well, Dr. Michael Osterholm, the influenza expert who also advised the Biden White House on COVID, says otherwise.

Now understand: I am not an Osterholm fan. I just happen to take a mischievous satisfaction when the COVID hysterics’ bubble is burst by one of their own.

Osterholm recently said in a podcast episode:

Let me just very briefly remind you: in the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, the virus in emerge from Mexico spread around the world in March 2009, hit the peak here in North America in late April or early May and then dropped precipitously in terms of numbers — no mitigation strategies, no canceling of classes or businesses, no masks, no distancing, and no vaccine. 

It just went away.

And during that summer, we saw we saw virtually no respiratory virus transmission activity, including any of the four standard flu viruses.

Well, then we got to late August and saw another big peak of H1N1. And those cases actually did peak in late September and came down precipitously in numbers after that, with a vaccine only arriving in mid-to-late October and even then, a limited quantity so the vaccine had no impact. Again, no mitigation strategies….

Well, now, fast forward to this pandemic. We went through the 2020-21 winter and we saw virtually no other respiratory pathogen activity. Somehow it was suppressed, including flu….

Osterholm then noted that “a very prestigious colleague” recently said in the New York Times “that the flu was suppressed because of COVID-19 mitigation efforts, including masks and social distancing.”

Osterholm is having none of it. “We have no evidence at all that the precautions played any role in seeing no flu — just like in 2009.”

Of course, little no masking in Sweden and no flu there, either.

“You’re going to continue to see this twindemic concept,” said Osterholm, and the idea that “somehow we mitigated it with masks…. It reminds me of [former CDC head] Bob Redfield, when he famously said at a hearing last year, took his surgical mask and slammed it on the table and said, this is more powerful than any vaccine. Which is absolutely inappropriate. And frankly, I think dangerous.”

Tom Woods