With so much social distancing ...

[Teaching3bears]

You would expect the number of all infectious diseases, like coughs and colds, to go down significantly.  Why are people sick just as much as always?

[chiguirre]

For us it's the peak of allergy season so there are lots of sniffles and coughs at this time of year. They're not due to colds or covid19, just pollen.

[Tanaqui]

In addition to the aforementioned allergies, don't forget that covid isn't the only disease that has a waiting period before it manifests symptoms.

[prairiewindmomma]

Our local news interviewed a hospital statistician: they are seeing a dropoff. They don’t know whether it is social distancing, the natural end of influenza season, or people too afraid to go to the ER unless they are fairly sure they are on death’s door. 
 

Local dr offices have closed down, so maybe stuff moved to telemedicine? That angle wasn’t explored.

[ktgrok]

2 hours ago, chiguirre said:

For us it's the peak of allergy season so there are lots of sniffles and coughs at this time of year. They're not due to colds or covid19, just pollen.

Yup. Pollen counts are terrible here, and we are all suffering for it. Worst is my PANDAS kid who gets brain inflammation from any immune activation. 

[katilac]

2 hours ago, Teaching3bears said:

You would expect the number of all infectious diseases, like coughs and colds, to go down significantly.  Why are people sick just as much as always?

Do we know that they are? 

[stephanier.1765]

I've been fine all winter but since the panic buying started I've been sick twice. My guess is that people who would normally stay home when sick are going to the stores to grab what they can for fear of not being able to do it later. I'm normally pretty good about washing hands and using hand sanitizer and, of course, I've amped that up to the n(th) degree so I'm not quite sure why I keep getting sick. Maybe there are things that should be washed after coming into my home that I'm not washing. I wish I knew because I'm tired of feeling like crap.

[RootAnn]

I had one kid puke this morning, running a fever & being dizzy. He hasn't been anywhere (other than in our yard) or with anyone except siblings since, I don't know, weeks. He must have gotten it from a sibling after a long incubation period.

[mathnerd]

17 minutes ago, stephanier.1765 said:

 My guess is that people who would normally stay home when sick are going to the stores to grab what they can for fear of not being able to do it later. 

yes. this is true. I saw so many people coughing (no masks) in costco the last time that I went there. It looked like they wanted to stock up while they could and they were coughing while standing near the canned goods, bakery etc. Many people were picking up boxes of produce to check if there was damage or not before putting it into their cart. One elderly man was even coughing all over the gas pump there while taking his time making small talk to every person around him and nobody seemed to be bothered by it except me. Am I the only person in my county who knows that COVID virus lives on plastic and steel for many hours and that the general advise is to go out only if you absolutely have to, don't go out if you are coughing, don't handle any product that you don't intend to buy and keep your store visit as short as possible and to run out of the store as soon as you get everything?

[vonfirmath]

I wonder if COVID is not the only disease that is infectious before it shows symptoms -- it's just the first one we've been able to catch "in the act" as it were due to it affecting such a large percentage of the populous at the moment.

 

[Tanaqui]

Oh, no. A great many diseases are infectious before they show symptoms - otherwise we'd just all avoid sick people and always stay well. That's one of the many reasons, for example, that AIDS spread so widely.

[ktgrok]

3 hours ago, stephanier.1765 said:

I've been fine all winter but since the panic buying started I've been sick twice. My guess is that people who would normally stay home when sick are going to the stores to grab what they can for fear of not being able to do it later. I'm normally pretty good about washing hands and using hand sanitizer and, of course, I've amped that up to the n(th) degree so I'm not quite sure why I keep getting sick. Maybe there are things that should be washed after coming into my home that I'm not washing. I wish I knew because I'm tired of feeling like crap.

This plus being under stress weakens the immune system, and we are all under a ton of stress right now. 

30 minutes ago, Tanaqui said:

Oh, no. A great many diseases are infectious before they show symptoms - otherwise we'd just all avoid sick people and always stay well. That's one of the many reasons, for example, that AIDS spread so widely.

Yup. It's why I hate when my neighbor sends one kid over to play hours after the other gets a positive flu test, or the rest are puking, etc. 

[EKS]

3 hours ago, vonfirmath said:

I wonder if COVID is not the only disease that is infectious before it shows symptoms -- it's just the first one we've been able to catch "in the act" as it were due to it affecting such a large percentage of the populous at the moment.

Being infectious before showing symptoms is certainly not unknown and is, in fact, quite common.

[Tanaqui]

Although I should point out that what's unusual about covid-19 is how very LONG you spread the disease before you show any symptoms, even mild ones.

[Daniel Hardy]

On 3/24/2020 at 12:07 PM, chiguirre said:

For us it's the peak of allergy season so there are lots of sniffles and coughs at this time of year. They're not due to colds or covid19, just pollen.

I think this is a big factor too for those of us who live in parts of the country/world that are already warming up and coming out of winter. My car has been coated in pine pollen every morning for a week and a half now.