You will notice the the cases of flu and pneumonia is maybe 5% of normal, if that. So are those cases being counted as Covid-19?
No, unless there is a positive COVID-19 test, it's not a COVID-19 case, with rare exceptions. Most of the non-positive-test cases on the books were from early in the pandemic before the tests were widely available, and frankly many of the doctors didn't bother with it because the cases were both obvious and the test result wouldn't have impacted treatment at the time. Now, treatment to some extent depends on the diagnosis.
Let's explore the flu being 5% of normal... why might that be? It's because for the last bunch of months, most people are wearing masks and doing some sort of social distancing. Not everybody, everywhere, but MUCH MUCH MUCH more than normal. This is one of those very clear pieces of evidence that wearing a simple cloth mask is VERY GOOD (but, not perfect) at reducing droplet spread, and diseases like flu and COVID-19 are primarily spread by the exact sorts of wet droplets that simple masks capture.
Most of the references that
@bigredfish posted about mask efficiency missed the point. The masks help by reducing droplet spread by infected people, by capturing droplets "on the way out" rather than filtering out virus "on the way in" to healthy mask wearers. If you talk, sneeze, sing, or cough, you expel wet droplets that cloth can capture. The droplets dry in the air in a matter of seconds to minutes depending on condition if not caught by the mask. Cloth masks do relatively little to filter "incoming" air as the wearer breathes, but hey even a 30-50% reduction is a lot better than nothing. Still, it's the efficiency at reducing outbound spread from infected folks that makes it so necessary that everybody wear one right now, because many infected people don't know they are infected.
It's all about source control.
The definitive article review of this with latest guidance is here:
CDC provides credible COVID-19 health information to the U.S.
www.cdc.gov
"Seven studies have confirmed the benefit of universal masking in community level analyses: in a unified hospital system,38 a German city,39 a U.S. state,40 a panel of 15 U.S. states and Washington, D.C.,41,42 as well as both Canada43 and the U.S.44 nationally. Each analysis demonstrated that, following directives from organizational and political leadership for universal masking, new infections fell significantly. Two of these studies42,44 and an additional analysis of data from 200 countries that included the U.S.45 also demonstrated reductions in mortality. An economic analysis using U.S. data found that, given these effects, increasing universal masking by 15% could prevent the need for lockdowns and reduce associated losses of up to $1 trillion or about 5% of gross domestic product.42 "
And, I agree with BigRedFish that leaders should lead by example and not do ridiculously unsafe gatherings.
@bigredfish, just because some places that require masks still have COVID spikes doesn't mean masks are not working... though it may mean the masking being used isn't enough, by itself. The important question is what would the COVID-19 surge look like without the measures in place... Well, this year we are masking and distancing and the flu rate has dropped to less than 10% of normal for this time of year in the US, and flu and COVID-19 spread the same way, more or less... HMMM.... Almost like dots waiting to be connected.
