> How can you explain people getting covid but not the flu when nothing changed when places started opening up?

Covid starts from a higher baseline level of cases, and it has a higher transmission rate. When societies "open up" (resume social contacts; it's more than just government lockdowns), then we'd expect to see covid cases climb before flu cases. In fact, seeing the opposite would be very surprising.

> ...and I will take that to my grave

"When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind. What Do You Do, Sir?"

Real answer? Ask how much faith you have in your religion of “facts”.

So how exactly does your system of belief work?

Flu is largely suppressed in summer anyway, with outbreaks moving from the northern to southern hemisphere, in time for winter, and back again.

So, it feels unsurprising that flu is relatively easy to suppress, since its spread is already fragile in normal times.

The combination of summer suppression and (continuing) hygiene measures has resulted in historic low levels of flu globally, which would need time to grow exponentially to even reach baseline levels.

Covid appears to spread much more readily through the air, why the influenza virus spreads much more significantly through fomites (touch and surfaces).

All that sanitizing and hand-washing, as well as not going into the office and school, cut that way down.

Meanwhile, Covid continued to spread fine in public transportation, stores, restaurants, etc.

The CDC doesn't accurately measure flu deaths. It's largely done by assessing death certificate data rather than positively identifying a flu infection. Deaths by pneumonia during the designated flu season months are counted in the tally of annual flu deaths. It is very likely that a portion of deaths attributed to COV19 over the winter were in fact from flu.