A lucky break? Covid-19 measures seem to have killed the flu season

In New York City, influenza-like illnesses' numbers are running at less than one-third of the recent norm for the first half of December

The pandemic is meeting many of the worst expectations that public health experts in the US and Europe had for fall and winter.

There’s one thing they worried about that doesn’t seem to be happening, though: a “twindemic” of Covid and seasonal influenza.

Instead, the flu is AWOL — so far at least. In New York City, which publishes a handy daily count of emergency-room visits for influenza-like illnesses and other conditions, numbers are running at less than one-third of the recent norm for the first half of December.
 

This seeming absence of influenza is almost certainly not just a