The WHO has recommended dropping a component of many flu vaccines because the viruses it protects against appear to have been driven into extinction in the Covid pandemic.

The WHO has recommended dropping a component of many flu vaccines because the viruses it protects against appear to have been driven into extinction in the Covid pandemic.

  • @some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
    37•9 months ago

    I read about one strain of flu that hadn’t been detected since lockdowns last year. Pretty cool side-effect.

    • Polar
      16•9 months ago

      Don’t worry, the freedumb people will find a way to bring it back stronger than ever.

  • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
    24•9 months ago

    It’s pretty amazing that we as a species have the ability to wipe out diseases. Smallpox, polio, now a flu virus.

    • Bipta
      16•9 months ago

      You’re really going to pat us on the back for letting COVID get so bad it drove a fly strain to extinction? That’s an extreme reach of a flex.

      Also this:

      But a leak from a manufacturing plant could theoretically reintroduce B/Yamagata viruses into the world

    • @PatrickYaa
      6•9 months ago

      We wipe out other forms of life all the time, be it by accident, wilfull neglicence or malice. Why not bacteria/viruses. Gotta have some good with the bad, right?

    • ForestOrca
      19•9 months ago

      The most interesting thing about this result is that it was achieved thru behavioral change (masking, hand washing, distancing, isolation), and not technologic advancement. We have the capability, with cooperation to significantly alter the infectious disease landscape.

  • bioemerl
    3•9 months ago

    Unfortunately it looks like influenza B and C aren’t actually all that common in the first place with A being in animals and causing most pandemics. This dead virus is a half of influenza B. It’s neat if we killed it off, but probably not any benefit to public health.

    • Nougat
      2•9 months ago

      It’s the plumber, I’ve come to fix the sink.