Why ARE coronavirus cases falling in the US with 44% drop in 3 weeks?

Why ARE coronavirus cases falling in the US with 44% drop in 3 weeks?

On Wednesday, a total of 110,679 new coronavirus cases were reported with a 7-day rolling average of 135,904, a 44% decline from the average three weeks earlier.

www.dailymail.co.uk

https://archive.md/N5d4M

Why ARE COVID cases plummeting? New infections have fallen 45% in the US and 30% globally in the past 3 weeks but experts say vaccine is NOT the main driver because only 8% of Americans and 13% people worldwide have received their first dose​

• Daily cases have dropped 45 percent since the latest peak on January 11, according to data from the COVID-19 Tracking Project . There were 131,341 new cases reported on Wednesday
• The decline appears to be a global phenomenon, with new infections falling worldwide for the past three weeks in a row, the World Health Organization said Monday
• Hospitalizations have fallen a whopping 26 percent since they peaked most recently on January 12
• Currently, 44 states are seeing a decline in cases with just Alabama, Louisiana, Montana, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania trending upward, according to Johns Hopkins data
• California's 21,451 new confirmed cases on Tuesday are about one-third the mid-December peak of 54,000
• New York recorded 8,215 new infections on Tuesday, down from the record-high of 19,942 new cases reported on January 15
• Health experts say it is too soon for vaccines to be playing a major role in the decline with just 8% of the population having received the first shot and fewer than 2% being fully immunized
• Officials say the drop is likely due to a higher number of people who've had the virus than official counts suggest, as many as 90 million people, and fewer people traveling than did over the winter holidays

As the deadliest month of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. came to end, the nation is seeing signs of progress including plummeting rates of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations and accelerating vaccinations rates.
On Wednesday, 110,679 new infections were recorded, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, which is much lower than the 215,805 infections that were recorded just three weeks ago.
What's more, the seven-day rolling average of new cases currently sits at 135,904, a 44 percent decline from the average three weeks weeks earlier, a DailyMail.com analysis shows.
Forty-four states are seeing a decline in cases, Johns Hopkins data reveals, with just Alabama, Louisiana, Montana, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia, on the upswing.
In addition, as the country headed into February, COVID-19 hospitalizations fell below 100,000 for the first time in two months.
Currently, 92,880 patients are hospitalized with the virus, the lowest figure seen since November 29 and falling nearly 30 percent from a peak of 132,474 on January 6, according to data from The COVID Tracking Project.
The U.S. death toll has surpassed 446,000 - with an average of about 3,200 deaths per day - but experts say fatalities are a lagging indicator and will likely increase over the next couple of weeks before declining as those severely infected over the winter holidays pass away.
However, most officials say that, with fewer than two percent of the population fully immunized against the virus, it is too soon to say that vaccines are causing the decline.
So the question remains: why are cases falling so fast in the U.S. and can the nation stay ahead of the fast-spreading mutations of the virus?
Public health experts believe that the decline in cases is likely a combination of a higher number of people who've had the virus than official counts suggest - meaning as many as 90 million people have antibodies against the virus - and fewer people traveling and holding gatherings than did over the winter holidays.
It's not just the U.S., however. The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday it has also seen declining new infections globally over the past three weeks. Our World in Data graphs show the daily infection rate has fallen by 30 percent in that period.
But Director-General Tedros Adhanom warned against relaxing restrictions to slow the spread of coronavirus on the heels of the good news.
'Over the past year, there have been moments in almost all countries when cases declined, and governments opened up too quickly, and individuals let down their guard, only for the virus to come roaring back,' he said.

Dr Ali Mokdad, a professor of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), said there are a number of reasons for the decline in case.
One of the reasons for the sharp drop in cases, even if not the primary driver, are vaccines.
Despite a slow start, the pace of vaccinations has been increasing. More than 52.6 million doses have been distributed and 32.7 million have been administered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
That figure is an increase from 16.5 million on January 20, Inauguration Day.
A total of 26.4 million people - about eight percent of the population - have received at least the first injection and six million - 1.8 percent - have been fully inoculated.
The average number of shots going into arms in the two weeks since Biden's inauguration has been around 1.3 million per day on average, more than the president's original goal of one million per day but less than his new goal of 1.5 million per day.
But these numbers are nowhere near the at least 65 percent required for herd immunity.
Experts say the decline in cases is likely due to other reasons instead, such as a higher number of people with natural immunity.
So far, 26.4 million cases - eight percent of the population - have been reported, according to Johns Hopkins.
However, most experts believe this is a severe undercount and only presents a portion of the true number of infections in the country, and Mokdad says likely another reason for the decline in cases.
Recent CDC models estimate that between February and December 2020, there were closer to 83.1 million infections in the U.S. In addition, to the six million cases reported in January, that means an estimated 89.1 million people have contracted the virus since the pandemic began.

The U.S., Europe, and the UK all reached their winter peaks of new daily infections around the same time in mid-January, statistics from Our World in Data show.
Cases in the three hard-hit parts of the world likely drove the global daily case rate to its highest point ever, with the seven-day rolling average of new cases reaching 736,396 on January 11.
By Tuesday, the average number of new daily cases worldwide had declined by 30 percent to 512,732.
Europe's new daily cases have declined from about 250,00 to about 180,000 a day, and the UK - which has been under lockdown since January 6 - is now seeing just 23,355 new cases on an average day, down from its January 9 peak of nearly 60,000.
And India, which is second only to the US for the highest number of COVID-19 cases, is seeing a decline, too.
New infections have fallen 25 percent in the past three weeks, to just 12,537 on an average day. Daily cases have plummeted from the country's September peak of 93,180 cases a day.
Mokdad says a higher percentage of infections in India, as much as 40 percent of the population being previously infected, has led to a decline because the country is heading closer to herd immunity.
But COVID-19 case rates there began to plummet far earlier and for different reasons than apply to wealthier nations like the UK and the US.
'In the wealthy countries...countries that are vaccinating right now, so European countries, and the fact they are in the northern hemisphere, the weather is going to turn out to be much better in the coming months,' Mokdad said.
'So a combination of vaccines, previous infections and the weather are going to lead to a decline.'
But if the northern hemisphere is going to see a decline in cases as we head into May, June and July, the southern hemisphere will likely see a rise as counties like Argentina, Australia and South Africa head into fall and winter.
'The seasonality will basically help some countries and is going to bea gainst certain countries,' he added.

In California, one of the nation's hotspots since the early days of the crisis, the rates of new infections and hospitalizations continue to fall.
The 21,451 new confirmed cases on Tuesday are about one-third the mid-December peak of 54,000.
Additionally, the state said the number of people in the hospital with COVID-19 slipped below 15,000, which is a drop of more than 25 percent in two weeks.
The state said that the number of people in the hospital with COVID-19 slipped below 14,850 - a drop of more than 25% in two weeks.
Deaths remain staggeringly high, however, with more than 3,800 in the last week.
It took six months for California to record its first 10,000 deaths, then four months to double to 20,000. In just five more weeks the state reached 30,000.
It then took only 20 days to get to 40,000. On Sunday deaths rose to 40,697, while total cases topped 3.2 million.

Meanwhile, in New York - the nation's first epicenter - cases have fallen nearly 10 percent over the last week, an analysis of state and federal data reveals.
On Tuesday, the state reported 8,215 new infections with a 5.47 percent test positivity rate. This is down from the record-high 19,942 new cases and 6.14 percent positivity rate reported on January 15.
'In the here and now, all the news is good. You look at all the trend lines, it's good,' Governor Andrew Cuomo said during a press conference on Sunday.
The state had about 8,067 hospitalizations on Tuesday, which a decrease from the more than 9,000 that were reported in mid-January.
However, Cuomo warned New Yorkers that the new COVID-19 variants were still a threat and that people still had to follow mitigation measures like mask-wearing and social distancing.
'For me, I have been through this a number of times, and I anticipate the probability of the future to be ready for it,' he said.

More states are reporting similar downward trends.
In Florida, which was was reporting as many as 16,000 new cases a day early in January, just 10,533 cases were recorded on Tuesday.
Additionally, fewer than 7,000 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, in the state, down from almost 8,000 earlier in January, reported the Tampa Bay Times.
The statewide positivity rate decreased to 10.77 percent.
And Illinois, health officials reported 2,304 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19,a steep drop from the record-high of more than 15,000 reported in November.
The seven-day rolling average test positivity rate, which sits at 3.9 percent, is the lowest figure seen sicne early October and has been cut by more than half from a month ago.
What's more, with just about 2,500 hospitalized patients, it represents an 59 percent drop from the peak of 6,175 in mid-November

 

[Snekposter]

Probably the mildest winter we've had in my neck of the woods for years, and people I know who live in other parts of the continent say the same.

Yeah. Its been two days of snow, total, in my neck of the quite literal woods here. Its as disappointing as it is shocking.

 

[Mariposa Electrique]

Because they're no longer counting flu cases and motorcycle accidents as COVID since that would now hurt them politically

Agree, a colleague was telling me about a moron who died on a motorcycle accident. Turns out, he had Rhona.

 

[Chicken Neck Nelly]

Yeah. Its been two days of snow, total, in my neck of the quite literal woods here. Its as disappointing as it is shocking.

I hate winter and usually we get dumped on here, so it's not disappointing for me at all haha

 

[Snekposter]

Well, its just been cold as fuck with a lot of days in the mid 40's and a lot more lucky to hit 40, so its all the downsides of winter with none of the fun. We don't usually get dumped on though, so the 4x4 can just power through whatever piles up. I feel for ya though living in a place where God dumps his dandruff on you and tells you its snow.

 

[Chicken Neck Nelly]

Well, its just been cold as fuck with a lot of days in the mid 40's and a lot more lucky to hit 40, so its all the downsides of winter with none of the fun. We don't usually get dumped on though, so the 4x4 can just power through whatever piles up. I feel for ya though living in a place where God dumps his dandruff on you and tells you its snow.

I really want to tell you about how terrible the winter was here last year, it was so bad it made international headlines, but this would require power-leveling that would give away my exact location.

 

[Rich Evans Apologist]

I fully encourage people to cut the Corona deaths in 2020 completely in half on the assumption that literally half of them were misreported as COD and then compare the halved number up against your country's top annual causes of death.

I don't tend to take issue with people suggesting that the lockdowns were bungled and in many ways unproductive, because they are.
But yes, I'm going to break the chorus of that "no worse than a mild flu" retardation.

 

[Suburban Bastard]

There is fraud. It’s not some bloke twirling his moustaches and altering charts. It’s the government putting rules, process flows in place that allow the fraud to happen by just recording a half truth, or the truth in an untruthful way.
For example: any death within 28 days of a positive test = covid. Regardless of the true COD. If that’s the reporting criteria, then reporting Bob who got hit by a bus 27 days after testing +ve as a covid death is playing by the rules. Is that fraud? It’s not fraud on the part of the reporting party IF that’s what the reporting criteria are. The fault lies with the people making the reporting criteria.
The same with the PCR tests. I tell the lab to process these million tests, using this specific protocol, and this spec i of definition of positive. The lab does what the protocol says and finds 300,000 positives. Now 300k people have COVID. Next week I change the rules, and demand lateral flow tests. Now 25,000 positives. I can now put out a press release praising whatever measure I put in to lockdown, because it’s working right! The number don’t lie and anyone who says otherwise is a bigot or a science denier. The lab isn’t committing fraud - the people setting the rules are.
See how easy it is? How people just follow the rules and do their jobs? If I say men are women, then that man in a dress can win women’s Wimbledon. And I can can arrest anyone who protests for hate speech. I define what hate speech is by the way. My rules. I define what share trading gets halted on Wall Street, so my lot win and your lot lose.
When you write the rules you create the reality. So yes, there’s fraud. Massive, epic fraud. From PPE contracts to lab conditions to death certificates to newspapers.

But what about the bigger question, the pharmacokinetics on the lipid vector?

 

[Toolbox]

I fully encourage people to cut the Corona deaths in 2020 completely in half on the assumption that literally half of them were misreported as COD and then compare the halved number up against your country's top annual causes of death.

I don't tend to take issue with people suggesting that the lockdowns were bungled and in many ways unproductive, because they are.
But yes, I'm going to break the chorus of that "no worse than a mild flu" retardation.

This comes with the assumption we've ever tracked flu seasons on the same level as the autistic hyper-awareness of covid. If we actually had ever done that, the death counts would be far more comparable.

 

[FreakyFredsTrannyGranny]

Spoiler: MATI rant about hands

On the topic of why regular flu numbers seem down this winter season, I wonder if it's because people are finally washing their disgusting hands? Some upthread have suggested because people aren't going outside due to harsh winters and lockdown, or are wearing masks that normal flu is down.

Wash your hands and don't touch your face. It's easy and free, now more than ever with alcohol rub being handed out like candy. I don't understand why more people aren't giving that simple practice credit for reducing flu numbers.

The only good thing to come from Coronachan is that people have learned to wash their hands. Kids get sick all the time and also have chronic sticky hand syndrome and like putting shit in their mouth. They like getting pinkeye because they do a terrible job wiping their ass and then touch their face without washing their hands. Could it be that washing your hands is effective in reducing transmission of germs? Could it be that the "science" of washing your hands is more concrete than the wishy-washy usefulness of masks or questionable efficacy of the vaccine?

I've gotten the flu exactly once in my life without ever getting the flu shot and I like to think it's because I wash my disgusting hands all the time and don't touch my disgusting face. It's not fucking hard.

Would we even need a flu shot if everyone just washed their hands regularly? We'll never know, temporary immunizations are just too lucatrive.

 

[Rich Evans Apologist]

This comes with the assumption we've ever tracked flu seasons on the same level as the autistic hyper-awareness of covid. If we actually had ever done that, the death counts would be far more comparable.

You do realize that we track flu by grossly overestimating how many cases emerge, right?
Leading causes of death numbers.
Scroll down here and there's a line graph on which the deaths are plotted. Again, divide it in half. As of Dec 31st, we've got about 355k coof deaths. Half of that is ~177.5k.
So if we assume that literally half of the coof deaths have been inappropriately reported (that would be fucking absurd), then it still beats out everything but heart disease and cancer.
If we literally double the already-inflated amount of influenza cases, then it's about 100k influenza deaths.

In sum: you're talking out of your ass and spinning a comforting yarn. It can be possible that lockdowns were bungled, that the virus is not terribly deadly for people under 40, and that it nevertheless presents itself suddenly as one of the top causes of death in the country - why does everything have to be binary with you people?

 

[ShortBusDriver]

I fully encourage people to cut the Corona deaths in 2020 completely in half on the assumption that literally half of them were misreported as COD and then compare the halved number up against your country's top annual causes of death.

I don't tend to take issue with people suggesting that the lockdowns were bungled and in many ways unproductive, because they are.
But yes, I'm going to break the chorus of that "no worse than a mild flu" retardation.

For reference it took 4 years to for the CDC to figure out how many people tied of swine flu

Some how the coof has hourly updated numbers.

 

[Meriasek]

You do realize that we track flu by grossly overestimating how many cases emerge, right?
Leading causes of death numbers.
Scroll down here and there's a line graph on which the deaths are plotted. Again, divide it in half. As of Dec 31st, we've got about 355k coof deaths. Half of that is ~177.5k.
So if we assume that literally half of the coof deaths have been inappropriately reported (that would be fucking absurd), then it still beats out everything but heart disease and cancer.
If we literally double the already-inflated amount of influenza cases, then it's about 100k influenza deaths.

In sum: you're talking out of your ass and spinning a comforting yarn. It can be possible that lockdowns were bungled, that the virus is not terribly deadly for people under 40, and that it nevertheless presents itself suddenly as one of the top causes of death in the country - why does everything have to be binary with you people?

The flu numbers are something I always found kinda weird. Germany has a population of around 80 million. The US has 300 million. During a particularly heavy flu season like 2017/18, you'd see around 25k dead to the flu within a few months. In the US, with a population more than three times as large, there were "only" around 61k dead, when I would have expected there to be more according to the larger population.
And then many more people died to the Coof in the early days of the COVID19 pandemic in Germany, and now the rates are reversed. In the early days, german politicians were patting their own shoulders and everyone was so happy we had such a good scientist as leader and so on, and now everyone is wondering what went wrong.
The numbers are all over the place. Nothing really makes much sense, which is probably partially down to weird and inconsistent rules and mandates, but it doesn't feel like this is enough to explain this wildly different behaviour.

Either way, the biggest long term damage will not be health or economical. It'll be psychological, and political. Old people will always die, and people will recover from the aftermath of harsh viral infections. It's not really much of a problem. Restaurants and stores will open, either continuing under old ownership or under new ownership, with people starting businesses like they always do. There'll be demand and a market. Life will go on.
Or it would, because the last year has permafucked a lot of people in the head. Adults on the one hand, and a lot of children in the critical years of development. Toddlers up to like three or four years will be fine, but after that children usually develop more of a social sense. It becomes more and more important for them to talk to and interact and play with other kids, continuing through the teenage years.
At least children are more malleable, and I think they can eventually bounce back from that. Adults might take longer, as their damage is not from lack of interaction, but just from a year or two or terror propaganda having turned them full on puritan tribals.

 

[Toolbox]

You do realize that we track flu by grossly overestimating how many cases emerge, right?
Leading causes of death numbers.
Scroll down here and there's a line graph on which the deaths are plotted. Again, divide it in half. As of Dec 31st, we've got about 355k coof deaths. Half of that is ~177.5k.
So if we assume that literally half of the coof deaths have been inappropriately reported (that would be fucking absurd), then it still beats out everything but heart disease and cancer.
If we literally double the already-inflated amount of influenza cases, then it's about 100k influenza deaths.

In sum: you're talking out of your ass and spinning a comforting yarn. It can be possible that lockdowns were bungled, that the virus is not terribly deadly for people under 40, and that it nevertheless presents itself suddenly as one of the top causes of death in the country - why does everything have to be binary with you people?

And you don't believe that if we overestimate flu by that margin, we've overestimated covid by way more (especially since it fit a narrative)?

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Spoiler: MATI rant about hands

On the topic of why regular flu numbers seem down this winter season, I wonder if it's because people are finally washing their disgusting hands? Some upthread have suggested because people aren't going outside due to harsh winters and lockdown, or are wearing masks that normal flu is down.

Wash your hands and don't touch your face. It's easy and free, now more than ever with alcohol rub being handed out like candy. I don't understand why more people aren't giving that simple practice credit for reducing flu numbers.

The only good thing to come from Coronachan is that people have learned to wash their hands. Kids get sick all the time and also have chronic sticky hand syndrome and like putting shit in their mouth. They like getting pinkeye because they do a terrible job wiping their ass and then touch their face without washing their hands. Could it be that washing your hands is effective in reducing transmission of germs? Could it be that the "science" of washing your hands is more concrete than the wishy-washy usefulness of masks or questionable efficacy of the vaccine?

I've gotten the flu exactly once in my life without ever getting the flu shot and I like to think it's because I wash my disgusting hands all the time and don't touch my disgusting face. It's not fucking hard.

Would we even need a flu shot if everyone just washed their hands regularly? We'll never know, temporary immunizations are just too lucatrive.

Washing your hands makes you into a weak-constitution bitch. It also made a generation of neurotics willing to believe this hoax.

 

[Fanatical Pragmatist]

Spoiler: MATI rant about hands

On the topic of why regular flu numbers seem down this winter season, I wonder if it's because people are finally washing their disgusting hands? Some upthread have suggested because people aren't going outside due to harsh winters and lockdown, or are wearing masks that normal flu is down.

Wash your hands and don't touch your face. It's easy and free, now more than ever with alcohol rub being handed out like candy. I don't understand why more people aren't giving that simple practice credit for reducing flu numbers.

The only good thing to come from Coronachan is that people have learned to wash their hands. Kids get sick all the time and also have chronic sticky hand syndrome and like putting shit in their mouth. They like getting pinkeye because they do a terrible job wiping their ass and then touch their face without washing their hands. Could it be that washing your hands is effective in reducing transmission of germs? Could it be that the "science" of washing your hands is more concrete than the wishy-washy usefulness of masks or questionable efficacy of the vaccine?

I've gotten the flu exactly once in my life without ever getting the flu shot and I like to think it's because I wash my disgusting hands all the time and don't touch my disgusting face. It's not fucking hard.

Would we even need a flu shot if everyone just washed their hands regularly? We'll never know, temporary immunizations are just too lucatrive.

See the problem is this wouldn't be such a controversial issue if the response didn't involve much more than the CDC telling us to wash our hands better; its controversial because we were forced under an arguably unconstitutional lockdown while state leaders made blatant power-grabs, rich corporations got fucking stacked while small businesses were de-jure forced into failure, people laid off in mass, children treated like isolated pets and stopped from socializing while fear porn is dumped into their minds (oh and BTW vaccinations for diseases that actually kill kids are down) - all for what? So government bureaucrats could say "well at least we did something!"?

I dont get where this sudden "its about washing hands!" talking point is coming from; but its fucking annoying. Its like talking about how great flag football is when people are riled up about the gladiatorial killfest you made them partake in.
Seriously nobody is arguing that hand-washing is a bad idea.

Washing your hands makes you into a weak-constitution bitch. It also made a generation of neurotics willing to believe this hoax.

God damnit...

 

[Heather Mason]

Washing your hands makes you into a weak-constitution bitch. It also made a generation of neurotics willing to believe this hoax.

Shh nobody tell this guy about the fecal-oral route

 

[Hollywood Hitler]

Spoiler: MATI rant about hands

On the topic of why regular flu numbers seem down this winter season, I wonder if it's because people are finally washing their disgusting hands? Some upthread have suggested because people aren't going outside due to harsh winters and lockdown, or are wearing masks that normal flu is down.

Wash your hands and don't touch your face. It's easy and free, now more than ever with alcohol rub being handed out like candy. I don't understand why more people aren't giving that simple practice credit for reducing flu numbers.

The only good thing to come from Coronachan is that people have learned to wash their hands. Kids get sick all the time and also have chronic sticky hand syndrome and like putting shit in their mouth. They like getting pinkeye because they do a terrible job wiping their ass and then touch their face without washing their hands. Could it be that washing your hands is effective in reducing transmission of germs? Could it be that the "science" of washing your hands is more concrete than the wishy-washy usefulness of masks or questionable efficacy of the vaccine?

I've gotten the flu exactly once in my life without ever getting the flu shot and I like to think it's because I wash my disgusting hands all the time and don't touch my disgusting face. It's not fucking hard.

Would we even need a flu shot if everyone just washed their hands regularly? We'll never know, temporary immunizations are just too lucatrive.

If flu was down all year because people were washing their hands at OCD levels, then why were there still COVID cases?
Flu numbers dropped 98% not because of hand washing, it was because they were count flu cases as COVID.

 

[Rich Evans Apologist]

For reference it took 4 years to for the CDC to figure out how many people tied of swine flu

Some how the coof has hourly updated numbers.

Almost like the amount of funding that went into tracking the coof was orders of magnitudes higher than for a flu that in the US killed a whopping 13k or so people. I fully invite you to look into the amount of funding that went into NGOS and government bodies like the NIH or CDC alike to track coof stats versus virtually any other 'pandemic' that came before it. You might notice something.
Do you look up anything on your own, or do you just parrot what you heard on the television any given evening?

In the US, with a population more than three times as large, there were "only" around 61k dead, when I would have expected there to be more according to the larger population.

The US population density is about 149 per km/sq. The German population density is 232 per km/sq. Average age in the US is about 38.1, and the average age in Germany is around 45.7.

Flu doesn't spread particularly well outside of cities and suburbs, and the US has a lot of people living in areas with incredibly sparse population. These people tend to be older than the folks living in cities and suburbs, so the demographic here most likely to die from flu is also one of the least exposed to it. While Germany no doubt has sparsely-populated rural areas, the amount of people living in spots like that pales in comparison to the US's % proportion. The common flu relies much more on pop density and proximity than does the coof.

And you don't believe that if we overestimate flu by that margin, we've overestimated covid by way more (especially since it fit a narrative)?

Did you click any of those links or even read the post? I told you to cut the number of deaths for coof in half and then to do a comparison to annual causes of death.

If flu was down all year because people were washing their hands at OCD levels, then why were there still COVID cases?
Flu numbers dropped 98% not because of hand washing, it was because they were count flu cases as COVID.

Do you think the transmission vectors for the two are identical?
Touch is an important means of transmission for influenza, because its ability to spread through droplets is far less effecive than coof's effective rate of transmission. Sure, if someone sneezes on you with either it's a solid chance of transmission, but coof is better at just breathing the same air as someone else for a few minutes. Washing your hands does a lot to harm influenza, but only impacts a marginal amount of coof transmission.

That said, there's also some truth to this, just not in your intended narrative. If you feel sick and you get checked up, they're going to give you a coof test if you show any symptoms. So if you have both regular influenza and coof, one of those is currently tested for much higher, and will be treated with more priority than the other. Influenza on its own shouldn't by default trigger false positives for coof, but the covid tests upon which the number is based are prone to having a significant number of false-positives on their own - in many cases because they're incorrectly administered.