Flus return every year. But one type seems to have become extinct. According to WHO data, not a single case of Yamagata influenza B has been confirmed since the spring of 2020.
The Yamagata flu was common every season. The graph above shows its annual peaks in China and the total Northern hemisphere, with thousands of cases identified in 2018 and 2019. But in 2020, it vanished. The most likely explanation is that COVID-19 measures — masking, social distancing, travel restrictions — slowed its spread from person to person, so the strain failed to spread and eventually disappeared.
This is extraordinary proof that it is possible to suppress a virus globally. Various organizations, including the WHO, the European Medicine Agency (EMA), and the Centers of Disease Control (CDC), recommend eliminating this strain from flu vaccines, which would make room for other, more relevant variants, and make them more effective.
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