Yea I'm not trying to down play it, just seems a little off. I can't think of a person in my entire life that I know that ever gotten the flu (while I've known

Yea I'm not trying to down play it, just seems a little off. I can't think of a person in my entire life that I know that ever gotten the flu (while I've known them) besides my wife when she was like 16. I know around 8 people that got Covid though. The loss of smell one is going to be huge but that's a side effect of any virus. Maybe what we're seeing here is an insane amount of people getting a virus, not necessarily that it has worse post viral syndrome than any other virus. Either way we're in for a shit show. Unfortunately, we can't really dwell on Long Covid. We can only do what we can individually to reduce risk and move on. Unless of course we want to live in a bubble the rest of our lives. Also if related to loss of smell for your friends, I'd recommend them trying scent training. I ordered a kit through here https://abscent.org/learn-us/smell-training https://abscent.org/learn-us/smell-training. It does seem to help. I'm doing it as a meditation almost and thinking back to past memories with the scent. It's kind of cool.