Apparently so. I thought some flus were caused by coronaviruses, but I guess not. Strange that this is most often compared to the Flu rather than a cold, though.
Most colds are caused by a virus that isn’t related to either corona or flu. Some colds are caused by a virus that is related to the current scary one. Coronavirus and influenza are not related, but have very similar symptoms.
And I’m not aware of any reason to believe that there are 100,000 cases in Ohio. Governor DeWine thinks there are, but he’s not an epidemiologist, and I don’t think he got that number from any epidemiologist, either.
Not an epidemiologist, can’t confirm the validity of their statements, but that is how the numbers are being calculated.
I can’t confirm the validity of the statements either- but I do want to point out that there’s a difference between 100,000 infected people , 100,000 ** sick ** people and 100,000 people who tested positive. Not all the infected people will have noticeable symptoms, even those who have noticeable symptoms may not connect them to corona virus ( for example, if I have a runny nose, cough and sore throat, but no fever, I might think it’s just a cold when it’s actually COVID 19) and not everyone with symptoms is getting tested. As far as I can tell , the reported cases are the number who have tested positive - there are certainly many more carrying the virus.
Certainly, there are more infected than confirmed cases. But by a factor of 20,000?
By far the most likely is that they DID have influenza of some strain, but the test did not detect it.
The common test is the Rapid Antigen test. (If the results were known within 15-30 minutes, you had the rapid test.) This test is designed to detect the most common strains of influenza A (mainly H1N1 & H3N2) and Influenza B. Doesn’t detect Influenza C at all. And there are dozens of other, less common strains of Influenza that aren’t detected by this test. Also this test is not the most accurate – about 1/3 of influenza cases don’t show as positive. But this is mostly accurate, and gives the answer right away – that’s important.
There are other, more complicated & expensive tests that can detect other strains. But most doctors don’t order them. Why bother? The treatment doctors order is the same (rest in bed, drink plenty of fluids, take pain relievers if needed for headache & muscle pains), and it’s more important to start that treatment immediately than to wait days for test results. Most doctors recognize flu by the symptoms, and just start treating it, without ordering any tests at all.
So the most likely case for this is that these few people either had an influenza strain other than the common ones detected by the test, or that they happened to be one of the cases where the test was inaccurate.