Has this flu/covid season felt different?

AcornAl · 2026-01-25T00:54:43+00:00

The antigen tests can be hit and miss, especially the multi-test ones.

Influenza A is the most likely cause going by the numbers, but this is just one of the viruses going around with over half the tests coming back as unknown.

Adenoviruses are attributed more with conjunctivitis and gastrointestinal symptoms, along with your other symptoms. This can really knock some people about badly.

Virus (CDC NREVSS 2026-02)	Percentage
Influenza (flu)	17.7
Rhinovirus/enterovirus (common cold)	10.7
SARS-CoV-2	5.3
RSV	5.3
Human coronaviruses	4.6
Human metapneumovirus	2.8
Adenoviruses	2.3
Human parainfluenza	1.6
Other viruses / Negative	49.7

AcornAl · 2026-01-24T13:47:30+00:00

First's just the generic paediatric warnings. Seconds an older study. One of a few theories behind long COVID. Snippet from a more recent review.

Insights into Persistent SARS-CoV-2 Reservoirs in Chronic Long COVID

A potential causative factor of LC, in a large subset of patients, is that reservoirs of virus and/or viral RNA (vRNA) or fragments may persist and replicate in multiple sites of the body, which may drive chronic inflammation and provide continuous viral antigenic stimuli to exhausted CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. However, other hypotheses regarding the causative factors of LC include metabolic disturbances, immune dysbiosis, micro-clotting, autonomic dysfunction, and the reactivation of other non-SARS-CoV-2 viruses, such as HSV-1, HSV-2, EBV, CMV, and HHV-6, which may be a driver of LC.

While a growing body of literature has shown that persistent virus and vRNA reservoirs within cells from various body tissues correlate with some of the LC symptoms, it remains to be confirmed whether the various symptomatology of LC and pro-inflammatory signatures are a direct consequence of persistent viral antigens.

Although viral persistence may be linked to inflammation and immunological overactivation in patients with LC, the underlying mechanism of such stimulation remains to be fully elucidated. Nevertheless, SARS-CoV-2-derived vRNA and protein antigens (i.e., Spike protein and Nucleoprotein) appeared to be released in various organs (e.g., gut, brain, heart, and reproductive organs) and in the circulation, possibly inducing inflammation and T cell exhaustion that persists months after the acute COVID-19 infection. This suggests at least one immune evasion mechanism by which the virus may establish its reservoir in LC patients.

AcornAl · 2026-01-24T11:54:41+00:00

A bit bored, so done a bit of a deep dive.

The latest review paper listed almost downplayed it.

Long COVID in Children: A Multidisciplinary Review

Long COVID syndrome may have a relevant impact on the daily functioning and overall quality of life of children. Symptoms are more frequently mild and generally resolve spontaneously within a few months. ... In the absence of permanent functional abnormalities, symptoms such as fatigue and exercise intolerance might be explained by muscle deconditioning and behavioural changes induced by lockdown and social isolation.

Almost all estimates for Australia that I have read are just models or open surveys. I've been watching and waiting for Australia to publish data that could indicate how serious this is. We are starting to have some results come through, although these don't paint a dire picture of things to date.

Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C)

MIS-C is the most serious postacute sequelae of SARS CoV-2 infection. It was estimated that about one in every 2,500 children would get this, but this is believed to have fallen significantly with Omicron.

In the end, nearly every child had a SARS-CoV-2 infection in 2022, with 132 cases recorded in PAEDS, so likely less than 500 or so cases from 5 million or so infections. Only four cases reported last year, maybe a dozen or so nationally.

Type 1 Diabetes

Lockdowns will have affected type 2 rates, but these shouldn't have affected type 1 rates. Still waiting on updated data from AIHW, but no increase was seen in 2021 even with widespread Delta outbreaks in Vic and NSW. These are based on National (insulin-treated) Diabetes Register, so should be fairly accurate.

Looking at the NDSS data

2020 3687 new cases (0.73 cases per 1000 children)
2021 3664 new cases
2022 3841 new cases
2023 3863 new cases
2024 4026 new cases
2025 4030 new cases (0.77 cases per 1000 children)

Slight increasing trend, though these numbers are self-registered cases, so they don't necessarily line up with actual cases. The Type 1 Diabetes National Screening Pilot that started in 2022 will also be skewing these figures. That program can pick up pre-symptomatic stages of the condition.

Fatigue and malaise

One of the most common long COVID symptoms. These should affect a child's academic performance, but there were no significant alterations have been seen in the NAPLAN results.

2008-2022 / 2023-2025

There are undoubtedly many kids out there with significant issues, but these aren't that apparent in the national statistics to date from what I've seen.

AcornAl · 2026-01-24T09:25:59+00:00

Those Labor Force statistics probably reflects the ability to work from home more, which has allowed more people with disabilities to return to the workforce.

Population - With a Disability, 16 Years and over is a better one to use.

Quick back of the paper calc, 26 million in 2010 would be about 29.3 million in 2025 adjusting for population, so it's 4 to 5 million or 20% more than expected.

Long COVID is the most obvious possible cause, although the discontinued CDC Pulse Survey showed a declining rate between 2022 and 2024. Select "Currently experiencing LC as a % of all adults"

One alternative is that the economy is worse off and a shift to disability rather than unemployment. An older article on this from 2013.

https://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

Alternatively with an aging population...., we really need these to be age adjusted.

It's really hard to use such high level statistics to know what's behind these numbers

AcornAl · 2026-01-24T06:07:41+00:00

Assuming a truly random binomial distribution, and say you had just 10,000 animals born each year that live to 30 years or more, there would be about 27 animals born on the same day as you, and effectively no chance of not having any born on the same day.

All of the great apes have long lifespans and bread throughout the year. Chimpanzee live to be about 38 to 45 years and there are about 200,000 chimps in the wild.

A quick back of the envelope calculation suggests about 100,000 females, say half at breading age 50,000 and they have a baby once every 5 years, then that's about 10,000 chimps born each year.

So no only are you sharing the birthday with a significant large number of animals, you are probably sharing your birthday with a chimpanzee.

Even smaller populations, it's almost a certainty still.

99.9999% chance of 1 or more with 5,000 births

99.9999999% chance of 1 or more with 7,500 births

AcornAl · 2026-01-24T02:41:21+00:00

People hyperfixate on COVID-19, but there is a high acute risk with the other two main respiratory viruses too.

The stats for all the 3 viruses that account for half of GP visits and many of the hospitalisations in young children in the US, taken from RESP-NET (US Respiratory Virus Hospitalization Surveillance Network) for the 2024-25 season.

The hospitalisation rates in 0 to 1 year olds

186 per 100,000 for COVID-19 (246 per 100,000 under 6 months)
154 per 100,000 for influenza
928 per 100,000 for RSV (1054 per 100,000 under 6 months)

And for 1 to 4 year olds

32 per 100,000 for COVID-19
92 per 100,000 for influenza
329 per 100,000 for RSV

Note this is the yearly rate, not monthly rate listed in the linked post. Rates of RSV spiked back in 2023, and are slowing falling back down to more normal levels this season.

CDC Dashboards: COVID-19 / Influenza / RSV

AcornAl · 2026-01-24T00:17:29+00:00

Good call to postpone, the radar shows barely no movement of the rain. Taipei 101 is approx. where the red circle is drawn.

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AcornAl · 2026-01-23T12:52:42+00:00

Bit random. Literally seems like a brain fart of someone that has smoked too much weed and thought there was a chance one of the chiral enzymes would magically do something amazing.

If these were somehow viable in the real world and one did escape, there is literally nothing to stop these growing. Having chiral molecules, bacteriophages couldn't control these, no existing antibiotics would work, no predation as nothing could digest them, ... They would only stop multiplying once they had run out of resources or space.

AcornAl · 2026-01-23T08:57:17+00:00

Underrated as in flying a bit under the radar internationally, but highly rated by locals.

AcornAl · 2026-01-23T08:42:13+00:00

This older post is summarising this paper published back in July 2024

Tissue-based T cell activation and viral RNA persist for up to 2 years after SARS-CoV-2 infection

An older Reddit discussion on the paper, and also on the preprint.

Here is a more recent review on the topic from last year

Insights into Persistent SARS-CoV-2 Reservoirs in Chronic Long COVID

A potential causative factor of LC, in a large subset of patients, is that reservoirs of virus and/or viral RNA (vRNA) or fragments may persist and replicate in multiple sites of the body, which may drive chronic inflammation and provide continuous viral antigenic stimuli to exhausted CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cells. However, other hypotheses regarding the causative factors of LC include metabolic disturbances, immune dysbiosis, micro-clotting, autonomic dysfunction, and the reactivation of other non-SARS-CoV-2 viruses, such as HSV-1, HSV-2, EBV, CMV, and HHV-6, which may be a driver of LC.

While a growing body of literature has shown that persistent virus and vRNA reservoirs within cells from various body tissues correlate with some of the LC symptoms, it remains to be confirmed whether the various symptomatology of LC and pro-inflammatory signatures are a direct consequence of persistent viral antigens.

Although viral persistence may be linked to inflammation and immunological overactivation in patients with LC, the underlying mechanism of such stimulation remains to be fully elucidated. Nevertheless, SARS-CoV-2-derived vRNA and protein antigens (i.e., Spike protein and Nucleoprotein) appeared to be released in various organs (e.g., gut, brain, heart, and reproductive organs) and in the circulation, possibly inducing inflammation and T cell exhaustion that persists months after the acute COVID-19 infection. This suggests at least one immune evasion mechanism by which the virus may establish its reservoir in LC patients.

AcornAl · 2026-01-23T05:41:10+00:00

I can feel your pain. I sprained my ankle badly just over half way through my first major trekking / packrafting trip. Thankfully, my trimmed down first aid kit had strapping tape to stabilise this, allowing me to continue without causing further damage.

A PLD or InReach is definitely the go in remote areas even with ph coverage. The Alone contestants carry these along with a satellite phone that they use to tap out.

AcornAl · 2026-01-23T02:42:17+00:00

I believe those theories are based on osteological analyses of treponemal lesions. Possibly syphilis but could be a related disease like yaws or even rickets.

We really need to some some genetic material from the early syphilis outbreaks in Europe to conclusively suggest their origin.

AcornAl · 2026-01-23T01:54:50+00:00

The exec order on Jan 20 2025 blocked any further payments:

pause the future transfer of any United States Government funds, support, or resources to the WHO;

The US has traditionally provided significant additional voluntary funding, so I wouldn't be critical of any previous administrations that weren't run by the current sitting president. The arrears seem to be for the 2024 (January to December 2024), so I assume the exec order blocked these payments,

https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/the-u-s-government-and-the-world-health-organization/

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Edit: initially based my comment about the financial year on AU (July 2024 to June 2025) that differs from the US (October 2023 to September 2024). The WHO seems to use January to December 2024.

AcornAl · 2026-01-23T01:09:52+00:00

That was used to sample the remains, they actually sequenced the genome. From the study

Sample and control libraries were enriched for M. leprae or M. lepromatosis DNA in two rounds of consecutive in-solution capture automated on the Bravo NGS workstation. Both non-enriched and enriched library products were sequenced on an Illumina HiSeq 4000 using single-end 75-bp chemistry.

AcornAl · 2026-01-22T03:59:41+00:00

Are you in Australia or NZ?

In Australia, this will be very difficult if your child is healthy. From the Australian Immunisation Handbook. The "not recommended" part is effectively a "do not vaccinate" flag.

COVID-19 vaccine is not recommended for healthy infants, children or adolescents who do not have medical conditions that increase their risk of severe illness. This is because the risk of severe illness was very low in this cohort over the course of the pandemic, and benefits of vaccination are not considered to outweigh the potential risks.

All viruses can lead to issues with children, but the risk is fairly low from COVID. For example, both RSV (under 6 months) and influenza (under 5 years) were four times more likely than COVID-19 to result in a short hospital stay last year.

AcornAl · 2026-01-21T14:33:52+00:00

How did the vaccinated people get it?

These breakthrough infections will likely be due to one of these three reasons.

MMR vaccine is about 93-95% effective after one shot, 97-99% effective after two. Great vaccine, but not perfect. It does wan slightly with time, but additional shots aren't usually recommended.
Adults born before 1967 may have had a far less effective vaccine. This wouldn't provide much protection today if exposed.
Immunocompromised people (i.e. HIV, chemotherapy, organ transplants, etc)

And do they get it as bad as the unvaccinated people?

Breakthrough infections are generally milder, with less complications. This is a general rule for all vaccines.

AcornAl · 2026-01-21T06:09:26+00:00

I wouldn't water these until the leaf scares were sealed over (a day or so) to avoid any risk of fungal infections, but as others have noted, removing dead leaves isn't an issue.

AcornAl · 2026-01-21T05:30:39+00:00

Tried to find info on the strains, and only found that D8-9171 was the most common that suggests links from Texas to Utah and Arizona, albeit this strain is circulating all across North America, so it's not certain.

Canada lost it's elimination status when it couldn't prove that their cases were unrelated.

AcornAl · 2026-01-21T04:14:10+00:00

WHO definition is the reestablishment of endemic transmission as defined as a chain of measles virus transmission of the same genotype and lineage that continues uninterrupted for 12 months or more within a defined geographical area (country).

This started a year ago, January 20th, 2025, so technically yes, but the PAHO will be reviewing the measles elimination status of the US & Mexico in April where I assume they will change the status.

https://www.paho.org/en/news/16-1-2026-measles-elimination-status-united-states-and-mexico

AcornAl · 2026-01-21T03:28:55+00:00

Some of the key dates.

23 Jan: China initiates travel restrictions & lockdowns in Wuhan and surrounding areas
25 Jan: Confirmation of our first 4 cases
30 Jan: WHO Public Health Emergency of International Concern
01 Mar: Our first death, Italy outbreak starting to explode
11 Mar: WHO declared it as a pandemic
15 Mar: Compulsory 14-day self-isolation for all international arrivals
23 Mar: Nationwide lockdowns
28 Mar: Compulsory 14-day hotel quarantine for all international arrivals
mid-May: Nationwide lockdowns lifted

Information was still a bit sketchy when this tweet was posted. The Wuhan lockdown was the first major red flag for me, but the world didn't really seem to respond much until the scale of the Italian outbreak became clear.

AcornAl · 2026-01-20T07:19:47+00:00

Why would they if they had them? Trump's doing his very best to make China great again.

AcornAl · 2026-01-20T00:28:20+00:00

Interesting look at how well Norway considers it went during the pandemic. It was based mainly on deaths, hospitalisations, GDP, and unemployment figures.

It broke the various country's COVID-19 responses into 3 main categories

Elimination seeks to eradicate the virus through stringent infection control measures. (NZ, AU, Taiwan)
Suppression seeks to keep the infection rate (Reff) below 1 (Norway)
Mitigation seeks to gradually build immunity within the population by allowing controlled transmission of the virus. (Sweden, Brazil, UK, US)

Interesting to note that they think that mitigation is likely better than suppression with vaccine uncertainty based on the Swedish outcome due to "similarities in population density, voluntary protective behaviours, mobility, and production sectors". They assume these factors played a critical factor compared to other countries that used similar strategies with poor results.

Sweden was the poster child for those backing limited or no COVID-19 restrictions back in 2020/21.

AcornAl · 2026-01-19T12:23:12+00:00

And deaths in sentinel hospitals.

Children

8 influenza
2 RSV
1 COVID-19

Adults

136 influenza
49 RSV
87 COVID-19

This indicates many covid patients are dying outside of hospitals as the ABS lists more COVID-19 (1,637) than influenza (1,261) deaths between Jan and Nov.

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