Physical distancing, frequently washing your hands, and staying home when you are sick have not only stopped the spread of coronavirus in regional Western Australia, but the precautions have also led to a 95 per cent decrease in the state's flu cases.
In the state's seven regions, the WA Health Department has recorded 216 influenza notifications this year to August 14, compared to 4,418 at the same time last year, and 429 in 2018.
Flu cases in the metropolitan area have also fallen, with 994 confirmed flu cases so far this year, down from 17,292 in 2019.
Just one person in regional WA and three in the metropolitan area have died from influenza this year.
In 2019 the state recorded 23,210 influenza notifications and 80 deaths — five of which were children under the age of 10.
The Australian Medical Association WA President, Andrew Miller, said it was a "silver lining" of the global pandemic.
"We haven't been very good as a society at preventing the spread of flu in the past," he said.
"But we're practising social distancing and hand hygiene at unprecedented levels, and the same thing that prevents the spread of COVID-19 also prevents the spread of the influenza virus.
"This has been a real wake up call to all of us how important those things are."
Flu outbreak still 'possible'
The State Government has pushed back the further relaxation of coronavirus restrictions to a tentative date of October 24.
All remaining restrictions, including the two-square-metre rule, would be removed as part of phase 5, which was due to start on July 18.
While crowd numbers remain capped under the current phase 4 restrictions, Dr Miller said there could be a flu outbreak if people become complacent.
"We still have a lot of people coming into the state each day," he said.
"It's entirely possible that one of them will bring influenza and it will start to move around the community while we're in our current, relatively relaxed phase.
"And the more relaxed we get, the more virus there will be, and more chances of a COVID outbreak as well."
But Dr Miller believed the increased precautions could see the number of flu cases stay relatively low for years to come.
"I think it's likely that it will be a long time before people forget the lessons of COVID-19," he said.
"That's certainly the case with countries that had SARS-1 the first time round; they have done much better with COVID because they haven't forgotten.
"There's every reason to believe that our community will have had this seared into our consciousness now, there's no way any of us will forget it."
