According to the Jornal of the American Medical Assciation only 748 US citizens died from influenza between October 3, 2020 and July 2, 2021. In the 2019-2020 season more than 38 million people in the US became sick with influenza and nearly 22,000 people died.

Mask wearing, social distancing, and handwashing certainly contributed to the eye popping low influenza numbers. Children are the great engine for the distribution of the influenza visrus. Keeping children at home and away from each other mitagated against influenza spread.

Despite these mitigation measures, COVID-19 continued to spread, demonstrating that SARS-CoV-2 is much more contagious than the influenza virus.