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Comment by lreeves | Hacker News Reader

I don't know where you live but in Canada we have programs like FluWatchers which send sample groups a survey every week asking about flu-like symptoms, flu vaccinations (and COVID now) and such every flu season. They can also request a voluntary sample from you to help track these things.

So the data is there :-)

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In the province I'm familiar with the Provincial government has canceled all testing for the common Flu unless your in the hospital. This is being misconstrued as the flu disappearing in my province which is obviously true because it's not being test for.

It's not being tested for because they are prioritizing COVID-19 testing, unless your hospitalized.

Which province was this? Here in Alberta we did twice as many tests as the year before.

https://www.660citynews.com/2021/04/13/zero-cases-of-seasona...

Well this is from the early part of 2020 for Alberta.

https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/influenza/Page14481.asp...

**Please note for all dashboards that as of March 12, community samples are no longer being routinely tested for non-COVID respiratory pathogens including flu.

And if you look at the 2020 - 2021 dashboard

https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/influenza/influenza.asp...

You'll see they don't have any test information for Influenza.

I may be misunderstanding this as it is hard to make sense how the governments statistics show no testing and that news article you mentioned with the chief medical officer for the province saying otherwise.

They never post how many tests were done on that dashboard, you can look at past years and see the same results. That data regarding testing doesn't doesn't seem available yet on the sites, but I see no real reason to doubt the CMO's claim, do you?

Well except for the link that I posted that specifically said : *Please note for all dashboards that as of March 12, community samples are no longer being routinely tested for non-COVID respiratory pathogens including flu.

And that they at least show non zero results for past years.

Interesting, I've never (knowingly) been a part of an epidemiological survey like that.

I was in university when the Ontario Health Study began and they were giving out Amazon gift cards for participating so naturally a ton of students signed up. They send out questionnaires to participants every few months.

https://www.ontariohealthstudy.ca/

Yeah it kinda feels cool to be an official FluWatcher, hope I don't lose my status by talking about it ;-)

In the USA, we have a few organizations that try to keep track of the flu. I think they are mostly private companies pushing drug ads though.

Before covid hospitals, and doctors, didn't test for the flu viruses. Maybe in severe cases?

I know for certain private practice doctors didn't. All you saw was a chart on the wall differentiating a cold, from the flu.

In the USA, the government tries to target the upcoming flu vaccine, but is usually wrong on the strain.

Personally, I think Americans have been dying for years of SAR viruses, and the government has been blaming the flu virus?

We had a family Thanksgiving in my grandmother's house in '98. My sister brought her two very sick kids to the holliday. By the next morning (12-16 hrs after exposure) we were all sick, with the exception of my brother. 5 people who never felt so sick in their lives. I could't even muster the energy to take my slacks off before dropping into bed. 7 days later my grandmother died. I was always under the impression the incubation period was longer than a half day? Whatever that virus was, I will never forget it for a lot of reasons. And of course, my grandmothers cause of death was "complications of the flu", and probally should have been on a respirator, and not sent home so soon?

> Before covid hospitals, and doctors, didn't test for the flu viruses. Maybe in severe cases?

This is simply false.

https://www.modernhealthcare.com/patients/providers-switchin...

> In 2018, providers completed between 35 million and 40 million flu tests in the U.S., including RIDTs that use immunoassay technology and molecular tests, flu testing company executives said.

Anecdotally, my kids' pediatrician does them any time flu-like symptoms are present. Same for strep tests. Both have rapid, in-practice tests that require just a swab.

In any of the places I've lived, I've never been to a doctor with suspected flu and not been given a flu test of some sort. Sure, I've gone in with something and been told "this is almost definitely not the flu so we won't test" but every doctor my family has seen over the years has done flu tests when suspected.

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