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Comment by 01100011 | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious, do we have good data on typical influenza infection rates per month, and if so, are we seeing a sooner than expected drop in influenza transmissions? I figure it would be a good gauge of how well people are adopting safer hygiene protocols.

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This has been seen in Hong Kong already. It's been noted that residents there were very receptive to social distancing measures due to their experience with SARS in 2003.

Data provided by the government’s Centre for Health Protection show the incidence of infection with influenza had fallen to less than 1 per cent by the end of February, marking an end to the winter flu season, which normally extends to the end of March or into April.

...

Ho Pak-leung, a leading microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong, said data showed the flu season had shortened from an average of 98.7 days to 34 days this year.

https://www.ft.com/content/ad7ae6b4-5eab-11ea-b0ab-339c2307b...

* Twitter link to above to possibly bypass paywall: https://twitter.com/Birdyword/status/1236491746541895685?s=2...

"It's been noted that residents there were very receptive to social distancing measures due to their experience with SARS in 2003"

It's going to be interesting how society changes as a result of this, for those of us who live through it.

Influenza statistics vary so heavily year-to-year, I expect it'd be hard to detect the change no matter how well people are adopting better hygiene.

Way too soon for that, but it will be investigated in the future.

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