Sources:

www.wellkiwis.co.nz

www.wellkiwis.co.nz/assets/WellK...

7/7

Last note:

It's still a surprisingly high amount of covid!

"Flu" is three co-circulating strains, and covid was detected more than any individual flu strain. It's quite possible it was the most detected individual virus. (RSV is two strains, RV is many...)

6/

Anyway, I think this serves as a good, if rough, sanity check on how often people are getting covid these days.

(No, it's not "every 2-3 weeks" as one infamous news article claimed)

5/

...that's still more year-round symptomatic flu cases than covid cases:

0.112 covid cases/person-year, or once per 9 years
0.125 flu cases/person-season, or once per 8 seasons.

4/

(2) Covid is present more or less year-round, but flu is more tightly confined to "flu season" which is when this survey runs, so there's some bias towards flu. Still, the survey ran 29 weeks. Even assuming all flu occurred in those weeks, and covid occurred equally outside those weeks...

3/

A few caveats to interpreting those numbers.

(1) These are symptomatic infections, so some infections will be missed. Case definition is below. This won't capture a mild bout of sniffles. On the other hand, rhinoviruses were detected 6 times as often as covid, so it does include some "colds"!

2/

EIGHT Senate Democrats have voted to advance the funding measure so far after the deal was reached:

Cortez Masto
Durbin
Fetterman
Hassan
Kaine
King
Rosen
Shaheen

If the existing 52 Republicans hold, that's 60 — enough to advance this agreement. Final vote still to come.

There are some interesting bits of information in here.

Clearly the numbers reflect both incidence and severity.

In ages 5-9, flu detections outnumber covid by a factor of 12 (😮)
In ages 70+, they are approximately equal.

BTW here are the numbers for all Australia for the year to date, broken out by state and age group.

www.health.gov.au/sites/defaul...

Thanks!

This is the one that really frustrates me, as vaccines are the easiest and best tool we have for reducing the disease burden of flu and covid (and so many other diseases of course). And a vaccinated population protects everyone, including those who can't get vaccinated or are immunocompromised etc.

"Just flu" is indeed maddening. In 2025 Flu is causing more outpatient visits, emergency dept visits, hospitalizations, heart attacks, strokes, and deaths than any other respiratory virus. Flu season sticks out like a sore thumb in *all cause* death statistics.

In Australia and New Zealand, flu and many respiratory viruses peak in austral winter (around July/August). Covid has been peaking twice a year, but largest wave is in winter. Not sure about other places. May is probably a good target for annual covid/flu shots.

P.P.S. I am also a birder 😀
www.flickr.com/photos/off-w...

Just to be clear, if wearing a respirator is working for you and keeping you and people around you healthy, then good on you, you're doing a good thing.

P.S. the advice I give when character count permits is below, I think these are things people might be convinced to do.

bsky.app/profile/mich...

We have a pretty good idea that "get an annual flu shot and wear a well-fitted respirator" is a message that 99% will ignore, so it fails. That's the painful reality.

Public health is about picking battles you can win, not aiming for a perfect strategy with zero adoption. We know from decades of experience that "get an annual flu shot" is a message that saves lives.

Moreover, tying (1) and (2) together risks making it all seem like it's in the "too hard" basket. If even a small fraction of the 60% who get a yearly flu shot decide that it's just too hard to avoid the flu, why bother, then the act of giving advice (1)+(2) actually did harm.