First of all here is the evidence for that claim, it's a report by the ONS (office for national statistics):
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending10july2020
Scroll to "Deaths registered by week" and the graph clearly shows that since early June (~ last 3 months) the UK has had more deaths attributed to the common influenza than COVID.
How is this possible?
Given that COVID is more virulent, more deadly, the population has a lot less immunity and there is no vaccine for COVID whereas many citizen have been vaccinated against the flu I am genuinely baffled how this is possible. It's a genuine question and not a troll question. I want to understand the science behind this. I would have thought that any measures we've taken to prevent COVID transmission should have been at a minimum equally if not even more effective against the flu.
Does someone have a greater understanding here on HN and can provide some scientific theory for what is happening?
Many thanks in advance!
Pneumonia is caused by several endemic viruses and bacteria. Some of these are very widespread, yet almost everyone is immune. They circulate but only cause sickness in people whose immune system is compromised. The social distancing measures against Covid-19 don't affect these germs all that much. Eyeballing the blue line in the graph, they seem to be down about 1/3 since social distancing started.
edit: it seems like the blue line decrease could be explained by:
"A death can be registered with both COVID-19 and Influenza and Pneumonia mentioned on the death certificate. Because pneumonia may be a consequence of COVID-19, deaths where both were mentioned have been counted only in the COVID-19 category."
So all in all we just got better at treating covid + social distancing/masks doing their job