This year’s flu shot will be missing a strain of influenza it’s protected against for more than a decade.
That’s because there have been no confirmed flu cases caused by the Influenza B/Yamagata lineage since spring 2020. And the Food and Drug Administration decided this year that the strain now poses little to no threat to human health.
Scientists have concluded that widespread physical distancing and masking practiced during the early days of COVID-19 appear to have pushed B/Yamagata into oblivion.
And from my anecdotal experience, lockdowns varied greatly locally as well. We had what I would call “rolling lockdowns” here, where a town might close restaurants and stuff for a few weeks before opening back up while neighboring towns would have mask mandates only. Some would go as far as total lockdowns, and many almost never had an actual lockdown. And it was all based on the waves of COVID infections. Towns would only act once they hit a certain threshold of daily infections.
I had a job during lockdown where I had a form stating I could drive on the state highways for work and up near the major city I might see 4 or 5 cars on the road when there should’ve been rush hour traffic, but in my town the only businesses that really closed were bars and restaurants, and that was only until they started adding outdoor seating and plexiglass walls between tables.
And then you had stuff like a girl I know posting pictures of herself drinking in a packed bar in South Carolina at the height of COVID, not a single mask in sight.