In 2020, the United States faced the shock of a new pandemic — but also a baffling medical mystery: the disappearance of the seasonal flu. While COVID-19 cases dominated headlines and hospital beds, flu diagnoses plummeted to “too low to estimate,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with later estimates at a mere 2000.
That’s not just a statistical anomaly — it’s a statistical impossibility. From an estimated 48 million cases in 2019–2020, the flu dropped to 2000 cases, statistically zero, in 2020–2021, amounting to a 99.999998% decrease — or put another way, a nearly 10 million percent drop. In the realm of infectious disease, that kind of disappearance doesn’t happen without a force far greater than a virus. In this case, that force may have been government incentives, diagnostic bias, and political opportunity.
Side-by-Side Comparison: Flu vs. COVID-19 (and Total Deaths)
Here is a year-by-year comparison of flu and COVID-19 cases in the U.S., alongside total recorded deaths from all causes:
| Year | Flu Cases | COVID-19 Cases | Total U.S. Deaths |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015–16 | 24 million | N/A | 2.7 million |
| 2016–17 | 29 million | N/A | 2.7 million |
| 2017–18 | 45 million | N/A | 2.8 million |
| 2018–19 | 29 million | N/A | 2.8 million |
| 2019–20 | 48 million | N/A | 2.9 million |
| 2020–21 | 2000 | ~20 million | 3.4 million |
| 2021–22 | 11 million | ~35 million | 3.5 million |
| 2022–23 | 31 million | ~25 million | 3.3 million |
| 2023–24 | 40 million | ~15 million | 3.3 million |
If mask mandates, social distancing, and lockdowns truly drove flu cases to extinction in 2020, why did COVID-19 — transmitted in much the same way — surge to 20 million cases that same year? It’s a paradox that challenges the public narrative.
Hellbound and Down 