3 ms·

Did you ever have the flu? I bet you didn't and if you think you did, you probably had a cold instead. A runny nose, headaches, and a sore throat doesn't mean y

by foepys 5y ago

Did you ever have the flu? I bet you didn't and if you think you did, you probably had a cold instead. A runny nose, headaches, and a sore throat doesn't mean you got the flu. The flu will bind you to your bed for at least a week and you will need 3-6 weeks to recover. You will feel like somebody ran you over with a truck. It's not fun, it's highly dangerous.

bamboozled 5y ago
Why do people always says this? I've had the flu, I'm sure nearly everyone has had it once. It's not really incredibly uncommon.
- bawolff 5y ago
  People do tend to conflate all sorts of "coughs" together as the "flu", including many illnesses that are a lot more mild than the flu.
  - Marsymars 5y ago
    > People do tend to conflate all sorts of "coughs" together as the "flu", including many illnesses that are a lot more mild than the flu. People do, but if you look at CDC estimates, tens of millions of people get influenza in any given year, so it's fairly like that any given adult individual has contracted influenza multiple times in their life. Disease Burden of Influenza: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html
glandium 5y ago
FWIW, I've had the flu (confirmed with nasal swab). I was bound to bed for 2-3 days, with fever spikes above 41°C but it didn't take several weeks to recover. Barely a few days.
Marsymars 5y ago
> The flu will bind you to your bed for at least a week and you will need 3-6 weeks to recover. It can, but this isn't a given. Tens of millions of people get influenza yearly in the USA, and there's a wide range of estimates of asymptomatic cases, with 50% being a reasonable baseline to work from. See, e.g. Seasonal Incidence of Symptomatic Influenza in the United States: https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/66/10/1511/4682599 https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/66/10/1511/4682599 > Estimates of the percentage of influenza infections that are asymptomatic include a common approximation of 50% [33], 33% in 1 review [34] and 4%–28%, 0–100%, and 65%–85% in another review [35]. Both asymptomatic and symptomatic infections are captured in serological studies. The commonly cited “5%–20%” figure came from a serological study [5], and so represents both symptomatic and asymptomatic disease among a mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated persons. If 50% of influenza were symptomatic, this would correspond to “2.5%–10%” with symptomatic disease, which is very similar to the range that we report.

by foepys 5y ago

bamboozled 5y ago

Why do people always says this? I've had the flu, I'm sure nearly everyone has had it once. It's not really incredibly uncommon.

bawolff 5y ago
People do tend to conflate all sorts of "coughs" together as the "flu", including many illnesses that are a lot more mild than the flu.
- Marsymars 5y ago
  > People do tend to conflate all sorts of "coughs" together as the "flu", including many illnesses that are a lot more mild than the flu. People do, but if you look at CDC estimates, tens of millions of people get influenza in any given year, so it's fairly like that any given adult individual has contracted influenza multiple times in their life. Disease Burden of Influenza: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

glandium 5y ago

FWIW, I've had the flu (confirmed with nasal swab). I was bound to bed for 2-3 days, with fever spikes above 41°C but it didn't take several weeks to recover. Barely a few days.

Marsymars 5y ago

> The flu will bind you to your bed for at least a week and you will need 3-6 weeks to recover. It can, but this isn't a given. Tens of millions of people get influenza yearly in the USA, and there's a wide range of estimates of asymptomatic cases, with 50% being a reasonable baseline to work from. See, e.g. Seasonal Incidence of Symptomatic Influenza in the United States: https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/66/10/1511/4682599 https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/66/10/1511/4682599 > Estimates of the percentage of influenza infections that are asymptomatic include a common approximation of 50% [33], 33% in 1 review [34] and 4%–28%, 0–100%, and 65%–85% in another review [35]. Both asymptomatic and symptomatic infections are captured in serological studies. The commonly cited “5%–20%” figure came from a serological study [5], and so represents both symptomatic and asymptomatic disease among a mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated persons. If 50% of influenza were symptomatic, this would correspond to “2.5%–10%” with symptomatic disease, which is very similar to the range that we report.