But people have largely stopped isolating and wearing masks – and natural immunity is low – meaning viruses and bacteria are back with a vengeance,and 2023 is shaping up to be a particularly nasty year.
Take influenza,for example.
In 2019,a bad year for the flu,there were 68,151 lab-confirmed cases.
COVID hit –borders closed and we fought to limit the spread with masks,handwashing andworking from home – and as a consequence,flu cases dropped to 6047 in 2020.
Staggeringly,there were just 299 flu cases in Queensland in the whole of 2021.
But nothing lasts forever.
In the final week of April 2023,Queensland recorded three times (937 cases) the number of flu cases in the whole of the 2021 year.
So far this year,Queensland has already recorded 9293 cases of the flu – that’s more than double the mean figure for the past five years (4070 cases).