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In reality, most people have never even had the flu. They often mistake a severe common cold for the flu. The true influenza hits you hard, like a brick wall, a
by geor9e 3y ago
In reality, most people have never even had the flu. They often mistake a severe common cold for the flu. The true influenza hits you hard, like a brick wall, and has a significant fatality rate among the elderly. The primary contrast between COVID-19 and the flu has always been the R-factor, which indicates how many people an infected person will spread the virus to. The flu typically has an R-factor of around 1, just enough to sustain itself. On the other hand, COVID-19 has an R-factor closer to 2, meaning that one person can infect 2, then 4, 8, 16, and so on. This is why many countries implemented drastic measures initially. Now that vulnerable populations are vaccinated and the general population has some level of herd immunity, the situation is not as alarming. The CDC implemented severe measures, but the new guidance does not imply that "COVID-19 was not a big deal" as some individuals are suggesting. It falls somewhere in between - there were valid reasons for the initial actions taken, some measures may have been missteps, but overall the situation has improved.
- calibas 3y agoThis didn't sound correct, so I Googled it. "Researchers analysed blood samples from volunteers in Southern China, looking at antibody levels against nine different influenza strains that circulated from 1968 to 2009. They found that while children get flu on average every other year, flu infections become less frequent as people progress through childhood and early adulthood. From the age of 30 onwards, flu infections tend to occur at a steady rate of about two per decade." https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/164239/adults-only-really-catch-about-twice/ https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/164239/adults-only-really-ca...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- geor9e 3y ago>Adults over the age of 30 only catch flu about twice a decade, a new study suggests. Oops, I was wrong there, thank you for the link.
- superkuh 3y agoSymptomatically. Cases of influenza a where the person thinks they only have a minor head cold do exist and are a good fraction of all cases. Almost everyone gets influenza a every few years. It's just that many cases are asymptomatic or minor. Reconstructing household transmission dynamics to estimate the infectiousness of asymptomatic influenza virus infections https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2304750120 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2304750120 "Symptomatic cases account for 68% (95% CrI: 63%, 72%) of infected children and 59% (95% CrI: 53%, 64%) of infected adults." Nearly half of adult influenza a infections are asymptomatic and go unreported and untested.
- gnicholas 3y ago> In reality, most people have never even had the flu. They often mistake a severe common cold for the flu. Really? My understanding is that high fever and body aches are the distinguishing factors between flu and other illnesses, and I distinctly remember having the flu a few times (including when I had it a few years ago and was given a test to confirm). I'd be very surprised if fewer than 50% of the population had ever had the flu. I would agree that people sometimes use the word "flu" to refer to things that are not actually the flu, but I doubt that there are that many people out there who have been around for ~4 decades but never got the flu.
- Spartan-S63 3y agoSample size one, but I’ve only had the flu once in my life (29 yo). It was back in 2007 when the vaccine whiffed on the dominant strain. I remember a two week period of little energy at first and then some energy I could expend on one task a day (for example, a shower). The flu is no joke, but getting it seems pretty hard from my anecdotal experience.