Yep, and next year is going to be a total shot in the dark for people formulating flu vaccines. Nobody's getting flu because COVID precautions are effective against flu, too. But, pigs and birds are, and their flu viruses jump over to us pretty readily.

My guess is that next year's flu season is going to be a lot worse than more recent ones because of this.

On the bright side, the practice we've (hopefully) had with masks, hand washing, and personal space should hopefully carry over to flu seasons in the future. If it does get severe, then we know what to do.

Whether we do it, though, is another question altogether.

Yeah, I wouldn't count on people actually doing it, either. Especially when a large segment of the population is convinced that mask mandates are a form of tyranny.

For obvious reasons, you're not going to see mask mandates for flu season. It's simply not contagious enough. I think there will be more social pressure to wear masks when you're not feeling well and an increased acceptance of staying home when sick though.

Sure, but do you really think people who won't wear a mask when it's literally against the law not to will wear one voluntarily?

I think it'll be more a matter of "I don't want to get sick and I'm your manager, so {put on a mask,stay at home until you're no longer sick} or stay at home forever".

This is indeed how it works for the healthcare industry; when I was doing hospital IT, my choices during flu season were either 1) vaccinate, 2) wear a mask, or 3) find a new line of work. I picked the first one.

My guess is that next year's flu season is cancelled too. It doesn't take much to push the R from slightly above 1 to slightly below 1.

Just putting a mask on half the symptomatic infected people (or even better, getting them to stay at home) would probably do the trick.

Also, the flu has to start from a very low level. Might miss this flu season completely.

Hmmm, my understanding is that the flu vaccines are basically built on the seasonality of the flu -- the southern & northern hemisphere's flu seasons run six months opposite each other, so you basically take the strains that were biggest in the southern hemisphere during its season and vaccinate the northern against them, and vice-versa six months later.

Do we have any sign yet on whether the COVID-season would be expected to run on a similar schedule?

Not really, no. The vaccines developed a year ago are mostly effective enough against the strains circulating now though, so it may work out for the better.

(the "spike" that the vaccines target is important to the virus, so changes to it often make it much less infectious or whatever, and we don't really know how much room is has to both escape the vaccine triggered immunity and stay highly infectious)

It is a bit different now because mRNA vaccines are much quicker to develop. It is somewhat realistic we can keep having up to date vaccines.