BrazilBusDriver

I think it makes a certain logical sense; I'll detail why below. But I don't watch the talking heads on cable news, so I'm excited to see everyone shout me down in a bit.

First, many people people who are moderately ill during the pandemic are quarantining at home, so there's 'less' flu that's showing up in the surveillance models, in sum total. It's unclear how much that has to do with the focus on COVID and how much has to do with less transmission of influenza, but the end all be all is we aren't seeing influenza show up in data.

Second, many people in white collar professional jobs have been working from home for the greater part of a year. This may shock our German friend, but I can say from my and my friends and family's previous experience in professional work - no one cared about influenza unless you were so ill you couldn't get out of bed, or you were high risk for some reason. But now if you are in the office and you're sick, you're being looked at like you're the reincarnation of Typhoid Mary. I've definitely come into work moderately ill with the flu several times in the last 5 years, and I was expected to do so. Seems insane in hindsight.

Finally, R (transmissibility) appears to be higher for COVID than for seasonal flu, meaning that COVID spreads easier. I've seen some speculation that the more transmissible disease, combined with pandemic mitigation measures and individual behavior changes, is causing COVID to 'displace' the flu, but I've not seen any studies that speak to this. At any rate, all those pesky mitigation measures and vaccinations actually seem to be working according to this - COVID's R value in the US is down around 1: Visualizing COVID-19 Spread Metrics (covid19-analysis.org)

Primer on R0/Rt from those filthy liberal pricks at Nature: A guide to R — the pandemic’s misunderstood metric (nature.com) Don't worry, I know only GermanAviator will read this stuff, it's mostly for him.

Influenza R0/Rt, somewhere between 1 and 2.1, depending on the study and the year: Estimates of the reproduction number for seasonal, pandemic, and zoonotic influenza: a systematic review of the literature - PubMed (nih.gov)

COVID R0/Rt, somewhere between 1.5 and 3.5 during the early parts of the pandemic, before the newer, sexier, 'probably more transmissible' variants, but maybe as high as 5.7: High Contagiousness and Rapid Spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 - Volume 26, Number 7—July 2020 - Emerging Infectious Diseases journal - CDC

Estimation of the reproductive number of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and the probable outbreak size on the Diamond Princess cruise ship: A data-driven analysis - PubMed (nih.gov)