5 ms·

> Healthy people spend roughly 15-25 days each year—about 5% of their lives—sick with respiratory infections like the common cold and influenza This seems comp

> Healthy people spend roughly 15-25 days each year—about 5% of their lives—sick with respiratory infections like the common cold and influenza This seems completely unbelievable to me. Totally outside of my personal, professional, and family experience.

j4k0bfr 4mo ago
This feels about right to me. Living with kids and commuting via public transport (in a country where face masks are not common) might break 5%.
mberning 4mo ago
For my family of 5 w/ school age children I would say that is a pretty reasonable estimate, maybe even a bit low for us. There are levels of “sick” though and I would say for us most respiratory illnesses are very mild and are a minor annoyance. Where it becomes more menacing is when we have sick kids and sick parents at the same time.
tibbar 4mo ago
Unbelievable in which direction? I've had years in which most people in my immediate surroundings were sick for weeks or months (likely exacerbated by mold, school, and travel). Also years in which I never really got sick at all. Getting sick that often is pretty debilitating.
JoshTriplett 4mo ago
This sounds roughly normal for what I came to expect back when I worked in an office with many people who had school-age kids. I had a colleague who wryly referred to his kids as "my little plague carriers". When I stopped working in an office, I almost completely stopped getting sick.
- puttycat 4mo ago
  +1 for office work as disease source. Plus taking public transport (mostly underground trains). Today I avoid the subway almost completely, taking my bike almost everywhere, to avoid getting sick during winter. (No kids though)
lokar 4mo ago
Are you reading “sick” as so ill that you can’t carry out your normal routine? I think they mean any symptoms.
- Someone 4mo ago
  > I think they mean any symptoms. I think so, too. The referenced article (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(03)12162-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...) says: “Every year, in the USA, about 25 million people visit their family doctors with uncomplicated upper respiratory infections, and the common cold syndrome results in about 20 million days of absence from work and 22 million days of absence from school.” That makes 44 million days of absence on a population of 340 million, or about one day for every 7½ citizens. Even assuming healthy people are as susceptible to that as the general population and assuming 50% of those that get ill will work, anyways, out of financial necessity, that still is a far cry from “Healthy people spend roughly 15-25 days each year […] sick” That paper also has a graph showing Mean annual incidence of respiratory illnesses by age group. Eyeballing it (ignoring size differences between age groups) I get at an average of about 3 infections. If each takes a week, that gets you to those 15-25 days.
atomicnumber3 4mo ago
No kids eh? My oldest starting preschool was one of the worst times in my life. We were sick from august to december, then january to may. Dreadful. It got better. My youngest is 3 now and is ahead of where my oldest was due to having 2 older siblings importing illnesses for several years, and this year we finally were mostly not sick all school year. Which is to say, we were probably closer to the 15 days "materially sick" mark. I say materially sick to mean, definitely sick, though perhaps not taken out of school (due to not technically being outside of the health exclusion policy, and sometimes I only realize they were "materially" sick after they got home instead of just "passably sick given kids will basically have a lingering cough from august to may).
- mixmastamyk 4mo ago
  This happened to us too, until I heard the podcast about Vitamin D. Nipped that in the bud almost immediately.
  - leptons 4mo ago
    I heard about vitamin D during covid, and that and hand sanitizer are the only 2 things we still do. I haven't been sick for a few years. Before covid (and vitamin D supplements), it was at least 25 days sick every year, if not more.
  - eloox 4mo ago
    What's that? Any particular dosage?
    - mixmastamyk 4mo ago
      Security now, but there’s more recent info today. Today I take 5k D3, K2 Mk7, and a multivitamin several times a week, not every day. More in winter. Result: not been sick more than a day or two for fifteen years. And rarely, once or twice a winter. One exception, during covid I had it and it lasted five full days at medium intensity, then went away permanently. This is not a “placebo effect” at all, was like turning on a light switch, immediate results. During the winter I heard about it, I’d been sick for almost three weeks straight, couldn’t shake it. Naysayers look silly in my opinion, or are perhaps an exception I mentioned above.
MBlume 4mo ago
I would love to move to whatever planet you're living on. To me the estimate seems low.
throwawaytea 4mo ago
Healthy lifestyle and food have a huge part. I date teachers a lot, and I've taken several people from constantly sick to almost never sick for 1+ year by just changing food and not going out to bars. I know this sounds like a random flippant comment, but I've done it enough times and consistently enough that I have no doubt personally.
- throwawaytea 4mo ago
  Am I down voted because people think I am just lying for fun, or because the idea that eating right and avoiding tight places packed with people keeping you from getting sick is upsetting?
  - Schiendelman 4mo ago
    You're getting downvoted because it's annoying to spout your own success, and EXTREMELY suspect that it's replicable. It's basically spam.
    - throwawaytea 4mo ago
      Spam I assume would need to be pushing some product or at least agenda. A message reminding people that you can improve the resistance to basic colds/flu for a school teacher, tested on several school teachers, should be motivating for someone tired of being sick.
      - Schiendelman 4mo ago
        A large volume of today's spam doesn't sell a product at first blush - it just piques interest, just as yours did. Then those ensnared by that, the responses, get the pitch more privately. You asked why you're getting downvoted. I'm doing you the service of explaining it's because your comment looks spammy and annoying. Take the feedback...
        throwawaytea 4mo ago
veunes 4mo ago
I guess it depends a lot on what they count as sick. I definitely don't spend 3 weeks a year in bed, but if you add up all the random sore throats, congestion, coughs that linger for a week and "not really sick but clearly fighting something" days, it may be less crazy than it sounds
fhars 4mo ago
Yeah, that number is probably too low by a factor of two or so.
kakacik 4mo ago
No its correct, having 2 kids and rate of sickness went through the roof, same for my wife. We also had 10+ covids to indicate how much it changes, mostly imported by kids from creche (we hit the 'right' timing with them and covid waves). What do you expect when they shared pacifiers and put fingers in mouths all the time. Or suddenly sneezing gunk all over my face when holding them. Before kids, I was usually sick 1x a year for few days, or had 1 proper flu week and that was it, my wife even less. No it didn't visibly improve our immunity, had covid last autumn and it felt almost like for the first time, sans loss of smell and taste.
Krssst 4mo ago
Being sick ~20 days per year was the norm for me before remote work (and using N95 masks after it ended). Some people are lucky, others are not. (well, "luck" actually encompasses many factors such as population density, presence/lack of children, mandatory office presence, proper infection countermeasures in public places (air filtering, aeration), and I assume sufficient sleep or not (the only time I did not get sick as often without masking was when I managed to sleep 8 hours a day for a few months))
- ryandrake 4mo ago
  Yea, Remote Work was a game changer for me. I used to get sick at about that rate, too when I worked in an office building, where I had to touch filthy germy doors all day walking from room to room, and were in constant close proximity to coworkers jammed together on shared desks. Now that I'm isolated in my sterile home office and might go weeks without seeing someone outside of my family, I basically take no sick days.

j4k0bfr 4mo ago

This feels about right to me. Living with kids and commuting via public transport (in a country where face masks are not common) might break 5%.

mberning 4mo ago

For my family of 5 w/ school age children I would say that is a pretty reasonable estimate, maybe even a bit low for us. There are levels of “sick” though and I would say for us most respiratory illnesses are very mild and are a minor annoyance. Where it becomes more menacing is when we have sick kids and sick parents at the same time.

tibbar 4mo ago

Unbelievable in which direction? I've had years in which most people in my immediate surroundings were sick for weeks or months (likely exacerbated by mold, school, and travel). Also years in which I never really got sick at all. Getting sick that often is pretty debilitating.

JoshTriplett 4mo ago

This sounds roughly normal for what I came to expect back when I worked in an office with many people who had school-age kids. I had a colleague who wryly referred to his kids as "my little plague carriers". When I stopped working in an office, I almost completely stopped getting sick.

puttycat 4mo ago
+1 for office work as disease source. Plus taking public transport (mostly underground trains). Today I avoid the subway almost completely, taking my bike almost everywhere, to avoid getting sick during winter. (No kids though)

lokar 4mo ago

Are you reading “sick” as so ill that you can’t carry out your normal routine? I think they mean any symptoms.

Someone 4mo ago
> I think they mean any symptoms. I think so, too. The referenced article (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(03)12162-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...) says: “Every year, in the USA, about 25 million people visit their family doctors with uncomplicated upper respiratory infections, and the common cold syndrome results in about 20 million days of absence from work and 22 million days of absence from school.” That makes 44 million days of absence on a population of 340 million, or about one day for every 7½ citizens. Even assuming healthy people are as susceptible to that as the general population and assuming 50% of those that get ill will work, anyways, out of financial necessity, that still is a far cry from “Healthy people spend roughly 15-25 days each year […] sick” That paper also has a graph showing Mean annual incidence of respiratory illnesses by age group. Eyeballing it (ignoring size differences between age groups) I get at an average of about 3 infections. If each takes a week, that gets you to those 15-25 days.

atomicnumber3 4mo ago

No kids eh? My oldest starting preschool was one of the worst times in my life. We were sick from august to december, then january to may. Dreadful. It got better. My youngest is 3 now and is ahead of where my oldest was due to having 2 older siblings importing illnesses for several years, and this year we finally were mostly not sick all school year. Which is to say, we were probably closer to the 15 days "materially sick" mark. I say materially sick to mean, definitely sick, though perhaps not taken out of school (due to not technically being outside of the health exclusion policy, and sometimes I only realize they were "materially" sick after they got home instead of just "passably sick given kids will basically have a lingering cough from august to may).

mixmastamyk 4mo ago
This happened to us too, until I heard the podcast about Vitamin D. Nipped that in the bud almost immediately.
- leptons 4mo ago
  I heard about vitamin D during covid, and that and hand sanitizer are the only 2 things we still do. I haven't been sick for a few years. Before covid (and vitamin D supplements), it was at least 25 days sick every year, if not more.
- eloox 4mo ago
  What's that? Any particular dosage?
  - mixmastamyk 4mo ago
    Security now, but there’s more recent info today. Today I take 5k D3, K2 Mk7, and a multivitamin several times a week, not every day. More in winter. Result: not been sick more than a day or two for fifteen years. And rarely, once or twice a winter. One exception, during covid I had it and it lasted five full days at medium intensity, then went away permanently. This is not a “placebo effect” at all, was like turning on a light switch, immediate results. During the winter I heard about it, I’d been sick for almost three weeks straight, couldn’t shake it. Naysayers look silly in my opinion, or are perhaps an exception I mentioned above.

MBlume 4mo ago

I would love to move to whatever planet you're living on. To me the estimate seems low.

throwawaytea 4mo ago

Healthy lifestyle and food have a huge part. I date teachers a lot, and I've taken several people from constantly sick to almost never sick for 1+ year by just changing food and not going out to bars. I know this sounds like a random flippant comment, but I've done it enough times and consistently enough that I have no doubt personally.

throwawaytea 4mo ago
Am I down voted because people think I am just lying for fun, or because the idea that eating right and avoiding tight places packed with people keeping you from getting sick is upsetting?
- Schiendelman 4mo ago
  You're getting downvoted because it's annoying to spout your own success, and EXTREMELY suspect that it's replicable. It's basically spam.
  - throwawaytea 4mo ago
    Spam I assume would need to be pushing some product or at least agenda. A message reminding people that you can improve the resistance to basic colds/flu for a school teacher, tested on several school teachers, should be motivating for someone tired of being sick.
    - Schiendelman 4mo ago
      A large volume of today's spam doesn't sell a product at first blush - it just piques interest, just as yours did. Then those ensnared by that, the responses, get the pitch more privately. You asked why you're getting downvoted. I'm doing you the service of explaining it's because your comment looks spammy and annoying. Take the feedback...
      - throwawaytea 4mo ago

veunes 4mo ago

I guess it depends a lot on what they count as sick. I definitely don't spend 3 weeks a year in bed, but if you add up all the random sore throats, congestion, coughs that linger for a week and "not really sick but clearly fighting something" days, it may be less crazy than it sounds

fhars 4mo ago

Yeah, that number is probably too low by a factor of two or so.

kakacik 4mo ago

No its correct, having 2 kids and rate of sickness went through the roof, same for my wife. We also had 10+ covids to indicate how much it changes, mostly imported by kids from creche (we hit the 'right' timing with them and covid waves). What do you expect when they shared pacifiers and put fingers in mouths all the time. Or suddenly sneezing gunk all over my face when holding them. Before kids, I was usually sick 1x a year for few days, or had 1 proper flu week and that was it, my wife even less. No it didn't visibly improve our immunity, had covid last autumn and it felt almost like for the first time, sans loss of smell and taste.

Krssst 4mo ago

Being sick ~20 days per year was the norm for me before remote work (and using N95 masks after it ended). Some people are lucky, others are not. (well, "luck" actually encompasses many factors such as population density, presence/lack of children, mandatory office presence, proper infection countermeasures in public places (air filtering, aeration), and I assume sufficient sleep or not (the only time I did not get sick as often without masking was when I managed to sleep 8 hours a day for a few months))

ryandrake 4mo ago
Yea, Remote Work was a game changer for me. I used to get sick at about that rate, too when I worked in an office building, where I had to touch filthy germy doors all day walking from room to room, and were in constant close proximity to coworkers jammed together on shared desks. Now that I'm isolated in my sterile home office and might go weeks without seeing someone outside of my family, I basically take no sick days.