APNews: Amid COVID-19 pandemic, flu has disappeared in the US

[AndrewGesell]

Covid symptoms are non-specific and occur in other illnesses.

Wasn't my experience. Ive always had some taste and smell changes during the flu, but The loss of smell and taste was very different from anything i ever came across. Fevers inconsistent and the near death experience of serotonin syndrome (im 33) It definitely seems to be a very different kind of illness

Coincidentally I have the regular flu right now and its exactly the same as before... so I'm convinced it's real.

 

[tankasnowgod]

Wasn't my experience. Ive always had some taste and smell changes during the flu, but The loss of smell and taste was very different from anything i ever came across. Fevers inconsistent and the near death experience of serotonin syndrome (im 33) It definitely seems to be a very different kind of illness

Coincidentally I have the regular flu right now and its exactly the same as before... so I'm convinced it's real.

So, a symptom that occurs in at least 30 other conditions convinced you that the Covid Prophecy is real, nevermind the fact that loss of smell wasn't what drove the propaganga in the early days in Wuhan. That would be serious pneumonia and people collapsing in the street.

Here's a list of conditions that cause loss of smell (and potentially taste) from the Mayo Clinic-

Loss of smell (anosmia) Causes

Learn about the definition and possible causes of loss of smell (anosmia).

www.mayoclinic.org

Some common and minor, some rare and serious, and everything in between. But that first one, acute sinusitis, which is a nasal infection, is really interesting.

Have you been wearing a mask a lot more in the past 12 months that you did every other year of your life? I bet you did. Masks catch your own exhaled bacteria, as well as those from other places in the world, and are a sort of mock petri dish where you constantly blow water vapor into it, through the act of breathing. So, you could have been breeding a low grade mouth and/or sinus infection during the past year. I'm sure a lot of people were.

As for the serotonin syndrome..... well, fear and isolation are great ways of increasing serotonin. As is wearing a mask, as it strains the lungs, and the lungs are one of the primary ways the body eliminates serotonin.

I think it's more likely that you caught a regular cold or flu, and the side effects from the medical experiments (like lockdown, forced masking, and non-stop fear propaganda) are what you experienced.

 

[AndrewGesell]

So, a symptom that occurs in at least 30 other conditions convinced you that the Covid Prophecy is real, nevermind the fact that loss of smell wasn't what drove the propaganga in the early days in Wuhan. That would be serious pneumonia and people collapsing in the street.

Here's a list of conditions that cause loss of smell (and potentially taste) from the Mayo Clinic-

Loss of smell (anosmia) Causes

Learn about the definition and possible causes of loss of smell (anosmia).

www.mayoclinic.org

Some common and minor, some rare and serious, and everything in between. But that first one, acute sinusitis, which is a nasal infection, is really interesting.

Have you been wearing a mask a lot more in the past 12 months that you did every other year of your life? I bet you did. Masks catch your own exhaled bacteria, as well as those from other places in the world, and are a sort of mock petri dish where you constantly blow water vapor into it, through the act of breathing. So, you could have been breeding a low grade mouth and/or sinus infection during the past year. I'm sure a lot of people were.

As for the serotonin syndrome..... well, fear and isolation are great ways of increasing serotonin. As is wearing a mask, as it strains the lungs, and the lungs are one of the primary ways the body eliminates serotonin.

I think it's more likely that you caught a regular cold or flu, and the side effects from the medical experiments (like lockdown, forced masking, and non-stop fear propaganda) are what you experienced.

I didn't believe any of it until i got it too. Again there is a sequence of symptoms that are different than the regular flu. I've got the regular flu right now and it's essentialy like every previous flu experience.

If you're someone who has to feel something to believe it just keep taking care of yourself and look into the Flccca guidelines. I feel fortunate to be alive and my family is well.

 

[tankasnowgod]

I didn't believe any of it until i got it too. Again there is a sequence of symptoms that are different than the regular flu. I've got the regular flu right now and it's essentialy like every previous flu experience.

If you're someone who has to feel something to believe it just keep taking care of yourself and look into the Flccca guidelines. I feel fortunate to be alive and my family is well.

Believe what, exactly?

I do believe that you got sick twice this year, once with symptoms that you experienced several times before, once with symptoms that you had not experienced in 33 years of life (but that millions of others had, years and decades before SARS-Cov-2 was even "discovered"). But that doesn't mean your symptoms were caused by a "novel coronavirus." Nothing in your statement proves anything otherwise. I've suggested some other plausible reasons for some of the symptoms you experienced. The described symptoms of yours do line up with some other so called "COVID patients," but not with many, many others. Your experience doesn't line up at all with so called "asymptomatic patients," those that have COVID (supposedly), but are perfectly healthy.

I still believe that so called "COVID" is simply a rebranding of existing diseases, like the cold, flu, sinusitis, pneumonia, and sometimes more serious conditions including cancer, kidney failure, and serotonin syndrome. It's also being used to cover up the side effects of the mass medical experiments run on the public without their informed consent, including lockdown and forced masking, among others. COVID really stepped this up by rebranding healthy people as "asymptomatic patients." Fauci and his ilk didn't try that with AIDS, which is basically a rebranding of 33 different diseases.

 

[gaze]

I still believe that so called "COVID" is simply a rebranding of existing diseases, like the cold, flu, sinusitis, pneumonia, and sometimes more serious conditions including cancer, kidney failure, and serotonin syndrome. It's also being used to cover up the side effects of the mass medical experiments run on the public without their informed consent, including lockdown and forced masking, among others. COVID really stepped this up by rebranding healthy people as "asymptomatic patients." Fauci and his ilk didn't try that with AIDS, which is basically a rebranding of 33 different diseases.

cant you make that argument about any virus though? like what's your opinion on the swine flu epidemic under obama? or ebola? all these different strains of viruses produce pretty much the same symptoms, but some are more contagious and more extreme than others. how can a novel coronavirus not exist? isn't there a novel coronavirus every year, that's mutated from the year before ?

 

[mrchibbs]

Wasn't my experience. Ive always had some taste and smell changes during the flu, but The loss of smell and taste was very different from anything i ever came across. Fevers inconsistent and the near death experience of serotonin syndrome (im 33) It definitely seems to be a very different kind of illness

Coincidentally I have the regular flu right now and its exactly the same as before... so I'm convinced it's real.

To be honest, I experienced loss of taste/smell and near death experiences from respiratory failure years before covid and I'm still in my (late) 20s. I think it's *probably* confirmation bias in your case. You could be right, I just don't think it's likely.

 

[YamnayaMommy]

Wait, how do you detect the very specific "Flu Virus" when you don't have them tested?

Well, I see that you can clearly tell they have "Flu Like Symptoms," and I certainly wouldn't dispute that. But how do you know which specific virus it is, and that it wasn't bad food or some sort of chemical, or some sort of bacteria, or some sort of fungus, or multiple causes at once?

Funny, when they started this "Pandemic by Prophecy" in December 2019/January 2020, the fear mongering wasn't about a bunch of people in Wuhan being totally fine with no symptoms. Nor was it having some headaches and possibly loosing their sense of smell for a week. It was supposed to be people collapsing and dying in the streets, and getting severe pneumonia.

How do you know it's the same "novel corona virus?" Did you get it on videotape? Did you compare it to the videotape of the woman catching it from a bat at the Wuhan wet market in December 2019, and say "Yep! That's the same virus I saw attack me!"

There's that word "virus" again, but you didn't test for a virus, and only describe knowing they have they flu by "Flu Like Symptoms," all of which can be caused by a number of things, both microbial and non-microbial.

Again, the quote from the Peter Doshii paper-



So of the 62,034 "Flu deaths" in 2001, only 257 were said to have the flu. And in only 18 of those cases was a flu virus detected. Which means, even limiting the analysis to the lower numbers, in over 90% of cases that have "Flu Like Symptoms," no Flu virus is detected.

So, if over 90% of the flu isn't the flu, then you're very likely incorrect with your assumptions about your kids specifically catching a specific virus based on symptoms alone.

Yeah I have no idea about the quality of the public health information on flu counts.

Doesn’t matter what particular strain of the flu infects school children every January and February. What matters is that it is an infectious disease that is especially dangerous for children.

I call it a flu virus because I am a native English speaker and that is the term we use to refer to the disease causing fever, chills and weakness, that is seasonal and is spread from person to person.

I don’t really care what the taxonomic status of the thing that causes the infection is. If it were discovered that it was bacteria or mold or whatever that causes the flu, it’s all the same to me.

I believe that we had covid because 1) we had the classic symptoms that were distinct from any other illness we’ve ever had (eg, anosmia), (2) there was a clear disease transmission history: my mom unintentionally infected us when she visited us from Michigan, where all of my extended family had it, (3) Within our immediate and extended family, we had multiple positive tests for coronavirus.

that’s enough evidence for me to believe we had covid, and it makes way more sense than the alternative theories

That's the whole point. They think infectious when it may not be, and probably isn't, in a lot of cases,

Sorry, this just doesn’t fit with the experience of parents of young children who see evidence of contagious disease when their school aged children get sick at the same time as their classmates, and then a few days later all the toddler and baby siblings at home get the same thing. In our household, for example, we didn’t get the seasonal flu and cold cases until my oldest started preschool. My mom tells me the same pattern held in the late 80s, when my sisters and I were starting school.

I bet that being childless is a risk factor for not believing in contagious diseases, and that includes ray peat

 

[YamnayaMommy]

Could have something to do with an environmental factor at school (recently sprayed for bugs, contaminated food in school lunch, seasonal change/maintenance to HVAC system, etc.). Not at school this year. See the pattern?

Typically school aged children get sick first, and then their baby siblings at home, indicating that infectious agent spreads first at school and then is brought home and spread to younger siblings.

this pattern is common experience to all parents of multiple children, going back many generations. My mom and grandmothers, for example, remember that cold and flu became a problem when the oldest kid started school

 

[YamnayaMommy]

Could have something to do with an environmental factor at school (recently sprayed for bugs, contaminated food in school lunch, seasonal change/maintenance to HVAC system, etc.). Not at school this year. See the pattern?

Also, i am noticing that even though my kindergartener is going to school in person (catholic school), there is no flu going around. What is different this year is that all the children and staff are wearing masks and they try to do social distancing. To me, this is evidence supporting the claim that masking and social distancing helps prevent the spread of flu etc. again, I don’t think it’s worth it: I’d rather have no masks and social proximity and some seasonal contagion.

 

[Perry Staltic]

Also, i am noticing that even though my kindergartener is going to school in person (catholic school), there is no flu going around. What is different this year is that all the children and staff are wearing masks and they try to do social distancing. To me, this is evidence supporting the claim that masking and social distancing helps prevent the spread of flu etc. again, I don’t think it’s worth it: I’d rather have no masks and social proximity and some seasonal contagion.

May be as simple as diligently washing hands. There are about a dozen RCTs that show masks do not significantly prevent transmission of influenza virus and one RCT that shows the same for Sarscov2 virus, so I seriously doubt masks had anything to do with it.

 

[mrchibbs]

May be as simple as diligently washing hands. There are about a dozen RCTs that show masks do not significantly prevent transmission of influenza virus and one RCT that shows the same for Sarscov2 virus, so I seriously doubt masks had anything to do with it.

I remember during the phony H1N1 pandemic there was hand sanitizer dispensers literally everywhere. It was nuts.

Maybe it's just where I live, but I think it was even more hysterical than this past year. Sure we didn't have masks back then, but I remember people going crazy over sterilizing our hands to death.

I believe this madness about the masks is of similar nature, barely scientific and mostly an exercise to get people used to it. As we remember, in the spring most ''experts'' were against masks, and there is at the very least a decent body of evidence showing their effectiveness is dubious.

 

[Perry Staltic]

I remember during the phony H1N1 pandemic there was hand sanitizer dispensers literally everywhere. It was nuts.

Maybe it's just where I live, but I think it was even more hysterical than this past year. Sure we didn't have masks back then, but I remember people going crazy over sterilizing our hands to death.

I believe this madness about the masks is of similar nature, barely scientific and mostly an exercise to get people used to it. As we remember, in the spring most ''experts'' were against masks, and there is at the very least a decent body of evidence showing their effectiveness is dubious.

With kids I can see hand washing as having a positive benefit. Adults usually aren't sticking their fingers in their mouths.

 

[mrchibbs]

With kids I can see hand washing as having a positive benefit. Adults usually aren't sticking their fingers in their mouths.

To an extent, hand washing is good. Obviously. But not to an extreme like it is currently.

 

[tankasnowgod]

I call it a flu virus because I am a native English speaker and that is the term we use to refer to the disease causing fever, chills and weakness, that is seasonal and is spread from person to person.

I don’t really care what the taxonomic status of the thing that causes the infection is. If it were discovered that it was bacteria or mold or whatever that causes the flu, it’s all the same to me.

You may not care about the definition of the word "virus," but it absolutely does matter. The flu shots supposedly protect against a few specific strains of "viruses," They do not protect against bacteria, they do not protect against mold, they do not protect against fungus, they do not protect against tainted food. If 80-90% of colds and "flus" are caused by these other microbes, instead of those specific "viruses," flu shots are worthless, even if they're 100% effective. Because they aren't treating the root cause.

As a native speaker, you should know that the word "virus" has a different meaning than the word "microbe."

There are potentially billions of dollars riding on knowing the definition of this word.

I believe that we had covid because 1) we had the classic symptoms that were distinct from any other illness we’ve ever had (eg, anosmia),

Well, maybe they are distinct from any illness you've ever had, but they aren't distinct from illnesses in general.

Loss of smell (anosmia) Causes

Learn about the definition and possible causes of loss of smell (anosmia).

www.mayoclinic.org

Over 30 diseases, all well known before December 1st, 2019, known to cause anosmia. How is that distinct from anything? Especially seeing as colds, flus, sinusitis, and hay fever are all on the list.

Did you, and the members of your family, wear masks to a higher degree the previous 12 months than you had the rest of your lives? Again, if the answer is yes, how do you know anosmia isn't a side effect of that medical experiment of wearing a mask more?

 

[YamnayaMommy]

With kids I can see hand washing as having a positive benefit. Adults usually aren't sticking their fingers in their mouths.

100%

This is so true. I am working on breaking my five year old of the habit of chewing on her fingernails. She doesn't do it at school because she is wearing a mask.

Yeah, so maybe the flu isn't spreading in catholic schools this year because the kids don't have their hands in their mouths and noses at school.

 

[YamnayaMommy]

You may not care about the definition of the word "virus," but it absolutely does matter. The flu shots supposedly protect against a few specific strains of "viruses," They do not protect against bacteria, they do not protect against mold, they do not protect against fungus, they do not protect against tainted food. If 80-90% of colds and "flus" are caused by these other microbes, instead of those specific "viruses," flu shots are worthless, even if they're 100% effective. Because they aren't treating the root cause.

As a native speaker, you should know that the word "virus" has a different meaning than the word "microbe."

There are potentially billions of dollars riding on knowing the definition of this word.


Well, maybe they are distinct from any illness you've ever had, but they aren't distinct from illnesses in general.

Loss of smell (anosmia) Causes

Learn about the definition and possible causes of loss of smell (anosmia).

www.mayoclinic.org

Over 30 diseases, all well known before December 1st, 2019, known to cause anosmia. How is that distinct from anything? Especially seeing as colds, flus, sinusitis, and hay fever are all on the list.

Did you, and the members of your family, wear masks to a higher degree the previous 12 months than you had the rest of your lives? Again, if the answer is yes, how do you know anosmia isn't a side effect of that medical experiment of wearing a mask more?

I did not say that the nature of the disease does not matter in all contexts. I always deny flu vaccines, in part because my impression is that vaccine manufacturers are not entirely trustworthy.

My point was that generations of parents have experiences with illnesses in their children that are most easily explained by what we know as "the flu." You can argue about what causes the flu and what is the appropriate public health response to it. But if you are arguing that the flu is not a contagious disease, then your argument is contradicted by the commonly observed phenomenon of school-aged kids getting flu symptoms every January and February (except in 2021) and seemingly infecting their families at home.

Yes, I know that "virus" and "microbe" refer to different things; I meant that if it were discovered that the disease that we call "the flu" was actually caused by a microbe rather than a virus, it wouldn't change my perception of it as a communicable disease.

I haven't known anyone to lose their sense of smell when sick before. And your suggestion that masks are inducing anosmia in people strikes me as absurd; do you have any evidence of it? But, to answer your question, several of my family members who lost their senses of smell have not worn masks because they were skeptics from the start and live in a rural area that has not been compliant with mask mandates. My husband (also a covid skeptic) said he could feel the infection moving to different regions in his body, and having it settle for a while in his eyes, brain, and nose. His eyeballs hurt. I didn't have that; for me, it was mostly chest muscle aches and lung irritation. We don't wear masks unless we're in an enclosed public space (per state mandate), which is not very often. My kid does wear a mask at school, and she didn't have anosmia (or any symptoms) although she tested positive for the virus at the same time I did.

 

[mrchibbs]

Loss of smell is rather common...has happened to me several times after severe colds. Strange that you believe it is somehow unique to the coronavirus strains

 

[TheBeard]

I know many people (including me and all my family) who have been infected with the coronavirus.

How can you be positive it was "Covid"?

People don't pay attention to it when they have the flu, but it robs you of your smell and taste most the time too.

What happened is that most people where under tremendous work pressure and stress.

As soon as the global lockdown was put in place in march 2020, most people suddenly slept more and relieved the pressure.

The body now had all the leisure and ressources to put the detox processes in place, hence the people feeling off.

For the 100th time, virus are not contagious

 

[jdrop]

Could have something to do with an environmental factor at school (recently sprayed for bugs, contaminated food in school lunch, seasonal change/maintenance to HVAC system, etc.). Not at school this year. See the pattern?

School induced stressors are many in number. Every moment of a school day could be hell for a kid.

 

[dfspcc20]

Loss of smell is rather common...has happened to me several times after severe colds. Strange that you believe it is somehow unique to the coronavirus strains

For me, loss of smell from colds/flu was always due to nose congestion. Was that the case for you?
Loss of taste, which seems to be what is reported (see recent post by Cameron), would be entirely different. If someone can't taste sweet, salty, etc after an illness, that's something I've never experienced or heard of prior to 2020.