Long time, no blog.
This article from philly.com suggests that the H1N1 virus might have actually saved lives. It uses the observation that this winter there was less flu than in recent flu seasons. My initial reaction to this, and in my mind the natural reaction, was that of course there was less flu, people were washing their hands all the time. The article makes reference to hand washing parenthetically, but dismisses it as the cause for no apparent reason. This past winter I washed my hands more than twice as much as usual, and we all know the plural of anecdote is data.
I see no reason why people's fear of swine flu and their subsequent good hygiene could not have caused a drastic drop in the flu this past season. Often the simplest explanation is the correct one, although maybe not the one that makes for a 3 page newspaper article.
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