Possible to have severe 2021 flu season because of Covid?

[aheight]

TL;DR

Will the limited availability of influenza cases due to covid hamper our ability to develop an effective flu vaccine for 2021?

Here's a CDC link summarizing how a influenza vaccine is developed: Selecting viruses for flu vaccine However, as you know, we've had a record mild flu season because of covid. I'm wondering if this will adversely affect our ability to create an effective vaccine for the 2021 flu season due to the relative lack of specimens? Are we headed for a deadly flu season because of covid? Should we be concerned? If it becomes deadly, I suspect we wouldn't have time to recover (develop a new vaccine). I contacted the CDC about this. Curious if they'll reply. Was wondering what you guys think.

 

[phinds]

I don't know the answer but it sure is an interesting question

 

[Vanadium 50]

First, there is a simple solution - stay locked down forever. If it saves just one life...

Second, seasonal influenza has a case fatality rate of 0.1% and 10's of thousands of deaths per year in the US. That means 10's of millions of people catch it. Even if 99% of the cases that would have happened last year did not, that's 100's of thousands. Plenty of specimens.

 

[Rive]

Are we headed for a deadly flu season because of covid?

I don't think that just one missed season will cause much problems but indeed, a few years of preventive measures suddenly lifted would likely mean a strong and unpredictable re-start.

But 'deadly'? No.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

A pandemic upside: The flu virus became less diverse, simplifying the task of making flu shots

With Covid suppression measures like mask wearing, school closures, and travel restrictions driving flu transmission rates to historically low levels around the world, it appears that one of the H3N2 clades may have disappeared — gone extinct. The same phenomenon may also have occurred with one of the two lineages of influenza B viruses, known as B/Yamagata.

Neither has been spotted in over a year. In fact, March of 2020 was the last time viral sequences from B/Yamagata or the H3N2 clade known as 3c3.A were uploaded into the international databases used to monitor flu virus evolution, Trevor Bedford, a computational biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, told STAT.

If the global pool of flu viruses has truly shrunk to this degree, it would be a welcome outcome, flu experts say, making the twice-a-year selection of viruses to be included in flu vaccines for the Northern and Southern hemispheres much easier work.

https://www.statnews.com/2021/06/02...diverse-simplifying-task-of-making-flu-shots/

 

[EHope]

Or perhaps unforeseen effects of the novel mRNA vaccine will predispose people to experiencing more severe flu symptoms? I imagine attributing a deadly flu season to a lack of adequately formulated flu vaccines is a better explanation.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

Or perhaps unforeseen effects of the novel mRNA vaccine will predispose people to experiencing more severe flu symptoms? I imagine attributing a deadly flu season to a lack of adequately formulated flu vaccines is a better explanation.

Do you have any reason to think that this would be the case? I am not aware of anything that would suggest that a vaccine could predispose people to more severe flu symptoms.