I felt bad after coming home from work, 4 weeks out in Korea.
Tested, as it wasn't a normal flu/cold like symptoms. Positive for COVID.
Surprised when I told work about it, as I was due on a course the following week, and they simply said don't come, stay home, get better.
They didn't ask for any sort of proof. Just my word.
For me, one of the main reasons is because it will influence how I approach self-care post-Covid. Whilst symptoms may be similar, there is a far higher risk of suffering long term affects than there is with cold.
I honestly thought we’d be going into this winter with both Covid and Flu tests being made available to the public and monitored, mostly because of a new more realistic assessment of NHS capacity and the service’s ability to cope with spikes in need,
nah back into business as usual mode, which means ignore it, even as it can have awful effects to the wider NHS
- I used to get the weekly email of all bowel cancer ops in London and bad flu years would see incredibly time critical surgeries delayed often multiple times because of flu swamping ITU & social care not having capacity to take people needing discharge
with the present backlogs and even worse staff shortages in social care I expect it will be even grimmer now
Some people still test for STDs but not not many people die from them.
Perhaps they still believe the lies of the past 3 years and think it's possible to die of covid rather than with covid.
I guess you're back from holiday then, how was it?
The one huge and obvious difference between flu and covid is how covid affects different people in very different ways.
Flu always makes people feel crap.
This is complete nonsense. Why do you believe it?
Because of how influenza affects people's behaviour in ways which colds and mild cases of covid don't?
One of the reasons why the "Spanish flu" pandemic was so widespread and had such devastating consequences was because war, the First World War, forced people with flu to behave in ways which they normally would not.
People with flu, unlike a normal common cold, generally feel totally crap and as a consequence are far more likely stay at home and not travel to work, the cinema, a party, etc. This obviously puts serious limitations on the spread of the virus.
However during WW1 the reverse actually happened, soldiers with flu felt so ill that they were moved from the frontline and as a consequence simply helped to spread the flu. The ending of hostilities then did more than anything else to spread the flu as soldiers were demobilised and they took the virus back home and across continents.
To claim that the flu always makes people feel crap might well be an exaggeration but it generally does.
The virulence of flu compared to the common cold usually has a dramatic affect on its ability to spread. To dismiss my comment as "complete" nonsense is also an exaggeration imo.
Yep I still test if I’m feeling a bit off. Not sure if it’s massively worth it tbh. Thursday morning I had a slight sore throat, tested negative, felt fine by evening, so rode and won a cycle race then went to see my folks. Felt a bit shoddy Friday night, again negative. Sat morning much better, tested positive. By which point my 80 year old dad has caught a dose off me
Ie..I’m not convinced the tests pick up the virus in time for infection to be prevented
I agree the general principle of if you are ill stay away from folks out of common courtesy regardless if it’s covid or anything else..
also..
Perhaps they still believe the lies of the past 3 years and think it’s possible to die of covid rather than with covid
what a knob…
Thursday morning I had a slight sore throat, tested negative, felt fine by evening, so rode and won a cycle race then went to see my folks. Felt a bit shoddy Friday night, again negative. Sat morning much better, tested positive. By which point my 80 year old dad has caught a dose off me
Of course the inverse may also be true, you could have caught it from him
The most common symptoms of Covid is no symptoms. Just like it has been the last few years. So testing regardless of any noticable symptoms is still a good idea if you or anyone you are in contact with is vulnerable.
Flu is still quite dangerous too though isn’t it? Arguably we should have flu tests as well for that reason.
Also, testing is handy to know when you are virus free and simply recovering.
Good question molgrips.
In mrs_oab's case it is clear that Covid has a much greater risk of long term harm or (more likely) death. It works in a different way, in different areas of the body (lungs) and needs immediate anti viral treatments.
Mrs_oab has had influennza a colds regularly - they often tire her out, regularly lead to a pneumonia/chest infections. But they absolutely did not have the effect that Covid did.
Edit: We both get flu jab each winter, but we won't get Covid jab this year....despite mrs_oab's immune system benefitting from it
@somafunk, happily. And I am not a violent person.
Prior to Covid, the flu was one of the biggest killers of the elderly/infirm, including my grandmother.
They must catch it from somewhere, and whether in care homes, or living at home alone most can probably count their weekly contacts on one hand.
If the flu meant "laid up in bed unable to go pick up a £20 from the doorstep" for everyone, they would never encounter anyone with it. But a minor sniffle or even assymtomatic from your carer or grandchild could easily transmit what for them is a deadly infection.
If the flu meant “laid up in bed unable to go pick up a £20 from the doorstep” for everyone,
Indeed.
The one occasion on which I had "proper flu" was preceeded by three days of increasingly miserable "cold." By the time I wouldn't have summoned the effort to pick up £2mil from my bedside table I had almost undoubtedly not had a cold but had had "proper flu" and been fully infectious for several days. I also did not catch it from anyone fitting the prior description.
Workmate’s mil is 94. If I got it and tested he or they could be positive but not symptomatic. If they knew they were exposed they could give the mil a wide berth for a week or two. Similarly I have a friend who is a liver transplant candidate. Pretty straight forward.🤷
That's pretty much my thinking too. I have a couple of colleagues who go home to *very* sick family members. They take loads of precautions at home, so why shouldn't i be a bit considerate and do a test if i'm feeling crap, then i have a spectrum of responses based on the result of that and how i feel. (Positive test/feel rough = stay home and let your boss know why, all the way through to just a mild headache and negative test, for which i'll take some medicine and go to the office but use one of the individual rooms)
People with flu, unlike a normal common cold, generally feel totally crap and as a consequence are far more likely stay at home and not travel to work, the cinema, a party, etc. This obviously puts serious limitations on the spread of the virus.
Flu also only has an incubation period of 12-24 hours IIRC, so if you test once you feel ill, you can tip colleagues off and they can take precautions. Not like COVID with it's ~7 day incubation.
"Oh, Mert looked like death yesterday, but doesn't have COVID", they can then take their own precautions based on it being flu or a cold. As opposed to "Mert looked like death yesterday, he tested positive for COVID".
At which point your manager should/will be checking who you've been in close contact with and notifying them if the contact was within the last few days so they can take precautions before they feel shit and pass it around, or just stay home for a few days anyway. I've had (probably) a dozen incidences of this over the last 2-3 years.
Eventually you get far enough ahead of the infection, that you can break the link.
Perhaps they still believe the lies of the past 3 years and think it’s possible to die of covid rather than with covid.
"He didn't die of being beaten to death, it was massive internal trauma and multiple organ failure."
If the flu meant “laid up in bed unable to go pick up a £20 from the doorstep” for everyone, they would never encounter anyone with it.
Yeah you would because it peaks in terms of its severity. Obviously because you stay at home due to feeling crap it doesn't mean that other members of the household also will.
The flu is obviously a lot less common than colds, no doubt there are a variety of reasons for this but the fact that people with flu tend to self-isolate during probably the most contagious phase of the infection must be a significant one.
@ernielynch, you don’t have any reason at all to dismiss all mild illness as “not flu”. It’s entirely reasonable, indeed certain, that many mild illnesses are just mild cases of flu. Why do you imagine that flu has some magical property that prevents anyone from ever having a mild case? Is there any other disease known to man that has this property? Regardless of pre-existing partial immunity, overall level of health, infection dose received?
The flu is obviously a lot less common than colds, no doubt there are a variety of reasons for this but the fact that people with flu tend to self-isolate during probably the most contagious phase of the infection must be a significant one.
It's diagnosed a lot less. Who does >99% of the diagnosis of a common cold? See also "you don't have flu, you don't feel unwell enough".
Flu also only has an incubation period of 12-24 hours IIRC, so if you test once you feel ill, you can tip colleagues off and they can take precautions. Not like COVID with it’s ~7 day incubation.
“Oh, Mert looked like death yesterday, but doesn’t have COVID”, they can then take their own precautions based on it being flu or a cold.
The big thing there is "mert looked awful 12-24hours app but it isn't covid" but the same 12-24hours is enough to land someone in hospital, it is, by that point, too late to do much about it if your at high risk.
Covid, cold or cholera, the best approach is if you don't feel well enough, stay away from people, you don't need a test to reinforce that. If anything the testing is problematic because it encourages "oh it's ok it's not covid, I'll go to the office" and in most cases [now] people are testing long after the data from the last couple of years tells us they're likely to have been infectious.
Covid, cold or cholera, the best approach is if you don’t feel well enough, stay away from people, you don’t need a test to reinforce that. If anything the testing is problematic because it encourages “oh it’s ok it’s not covid, I’ll go to the office” and in most cases [now] people are testing long after the data from the last couple of years tells us they’re likely to have been infectious.
+1
Covid, cold or cholera, the best approach is if you don’t feel well enough, stay away from people, you don’t need a test to reinforce that. If anything the testing is problematic because it encourages “oh it’s ok it’s not covid, I’ll go to the office” and in most cases [now] people are testing long after the data from the last couple of years tells us they’re likely to have been infectious.
Indeed.
Try telling that to some of my colleagues or bosses who insist on folk coming in.
That said, there are many who would make use of such opportunity to skive regularly - I worked with someone who 'aimed' for at least two weeks a year of 'ill' days....
Why do you imagine that flu has some magical property that prevents anyone from ever having a mild case?
I don't. The idea that I think that, because I recognise that influenza when compared to the common cold tends to be more severe, is a conclusion that you have come to.
Obviously mild cases of the flu do occur but in most cases people feel pretty crap, it generally isn't like catching a cold.
Have you ever wondered why the term "man-flu" came about? It is the alledged tendancy of men to exaggerate the symptoms of a cold and claim that is the flu.
Getting back to covid ..... covid for a potentially fatal illness seems to have a particularly high incidences of mild cold-like cases, certainly more than flu. Unlike the common cold however it is potentially far more dangerous.
That anyway is how I perceive it, I don't have numbers at hand to back up my perception.
And since this is stw, yes I do know that the common cold can be potentially fatal, especially if you live in an isolated community in the Amazon basin.
I genuinely think a lot of people have never had the Flu and confuse it with a heavy cold. I’ve had Flu once and going to work wouldn’t have been an option as I had to literally commando crawl across the landing, in stages, to go to the toilet. Going to work simply wouldn’t have been an option. It’s a horrible illness and a cold of any sort is a walk in the park by comparison.
I do as I'm a socially responsible person and not a selfish person. My grandma is 95, how shit would it be if I killed her by passing on COVID because I didn't test before going to see her, all because someone in the internet thinks it's ok not to?
Did you read any of the discussion Sheffield?
Flu is still quite dangerous too though isn’t it? Arguably we should have flu tests as well for that reason.
Maybe, but COVID still seems to have more potential than most strains to be crap.
Last TV job I did we were lax with the testing (because hey, covid is over, right?) having previously had variations on testing daily/weekly/having to electronically sign "I have no symptoms" and take a thermometer reading etc. that time there was just a pile of tests in the canteen. I (probably) brought it back from a wedding and wiped out half the crew for a fortnight and almost brought production to a halt.
I don't think they're testing anymore but you still have to take a test if you have ANY flu-ish symptoms as the job is insured against being shut down due to a covid outbreak. 6 Vs 1/2 doz, it's a load of day rate freelancers who'd turn up at deaths door so there has to be something to stop them, on the other hand yes it doesn't test for anything else.
I genuinely think a lot of people have never had the Flu and confuse it with a heavy cold. I’ve had Flu once and going to work wouldn’t have been an option as I had to literally commando crawl across the landing, in stages, to go to the toilet. Going to work simply wouldn’t have been an option. It’s a horrible illness and a cold of any sort is a walk in the park by comparison.
I think part of the issue is you can have a flu and get very light symptoms or none at all. But then spread it to the next person to whom it's deadly. When I got it I struggled through several days without a test as the sound guy had a cold, and as it spread through the crew we all just assumed it was his cold. 50/50 we either ended up in bed for the next week or were asymptomatic.
I genuinely think a lot of people have never had the Flu and confuse it with a heavy cold. I’ve had Flu once and going to work wouldn’t have been an option as I had to literally commando crawl across the landing, in stages, to go to the toilet. Going to work simply wouldn’t have been an option. It’s a horrible illness and a cold of any sort is a walk in the park by comparison.
I genuinely think if we tested for flu like we [previously] did for covid there would be a lot of colds or no symptoms at all which turned out to be flu.
How many people do you know who have ever been tested for flu? It's diagnosed almost exclusively based on symptoms in the general population, many of those symptoms look like - heres a familiar story - cold, hay-fever, "a bit of a bug" etc it's only when they're really bad they're marked up as flu.
If we hadn't had mass testing and huge awareness, how big an increase do you think we'd have seen in colds, hay-fever and flu in those who weren't hospitalised during 2020/2021?
You'd likely be saying of covid "I genuinely think a lot of people have never had covid and confuse it with a heavy cold. Going to work simply wouldn’t have been an option. It’s a horrible illness".
It’s diagnosed almost exclusively based on symptoms in the general population, many of those symptoms look like – heres a familiar story – cold, hay-fever, “a bit of a bug” etc it’s only when they’re really bad they’re marked up as flu.
Many don’t which is why it can be diagnosed.
Loads of studies "demonstrating" that asymptomatic 'flu is common - likely the dominant type. At least one from several years of careful observation in the UK (as with COVID though, self-swabbing technique can affect results but this one was blood tests at the beginning & end of the 'flu season, with telephone interviews and symptom diaries during the season. They then looked at who eventually tested positive but had not reported symptoms. It was lots:
(a bit less known about how infectious these asymptomatic people might be, especially outside of their own households)
"Seasonal influenza and the 2009 pandemic strain were characterised by similar high rates of mainly asymptomatic infection with most symptomatic cases self-managing without medical consultation. In the community the 2009 pandemic strain caused milder symptoms than seasonal H3N2"
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(14)70034-7/fulltext
although you should obviously avoid doing stuff that is likely to spread the virus such as kissing and embracing people.
So not much point going into the office then?
At the age of 51 I have never knowingly had Flu. Safe to say I have had it either very mildly or asymptomatically a good few times. The same applies to pretty much every pathogenic virus from the common cold to Ebola.
So not much point going into the office then?
Took a while for this thread to get to Matt Hancock.
I was feeling ill about 6 months ago and tested negative, yet my symptoms were the same as when I had Covid last year (tested positive then). I'm not sure the tests are even accurate for the newer strains. I'd just treat it the same as any other cold/flu/virus illness.
I genuinely think if we tested for flu like we [previously] did for covid there would be a lot of colds or no symptoms at all which turned out to be flu
The hospital my OHs sister worked at in the US would test for flu as well as Covid and yes she did have a ‘mild flu’ at one point and got sent home.
We still test in our house for the reasons given by posters above, including the fact that my sick pay is at the discretion of the company and a date coded photo of a positive Covid test is sadly more likely to result in being paid.
You haven't had proper flu unless you've been hospitalized/it killed you fact! anything else is a sniffle by comparison :/
everyone will experience symptom severity somewhere on a typical bell curve for most infectious diseases, and for some diseases the peak of the bell curve is closer to death than others, being on the mild end of the curve doesn't mean you don't have it, I think COVID has taught us that at least.
Safe to say I have had it either very mildly or asymptomatically a good few times. The same applies to pretty much every pathogenic virus from the common cold to Ebola
Pretty sure I've not had mild ebola
I’ve had it loads of times!
Obviously not but the point is that even with horrific viruses there is variation - I think Ebola mortality is 25-40% so you’re more likely to survive than die. Would probably be much lower if it was a disease of developed countries with good healthcare.
To quote ref Flu:
One out of every three individuals with seasonal flu infections may be asymptomatic.
so you’re more likely to survive than die.
That's ok then.
I've just tested positive for it, but my work doesn't know what the policy about it is anymore. Common sense says I shouldn't go in, but when they say to you "why did you take a test?", it makes you think they don't care about it anymore
Usual policy is like any other illness these days - ie if you’re not fit to be in work stay off sick. When you are, go back. There may still be a recommendation for 5 days away if you test positive but it’s certainly not mandatory any more so would come down to individual policy.
I work in an office where pretty much everyone can work from home on any given day if they want. If someone comes in with a cold I just think fair enough
I think it's daft. They can work from home, and they're ill. Why would anyone with a brain drag themselves into an office?
I know the answer of course. It's so they can puff out their chest and boast "I've never had a day off work in my life!" Perhaps not, but everyone else has because of them, the selfish pricks.
Back before WFH was a thing the rule of thumb I used was "if I go in, will I be any use?" and if the answer is no then there's no point. I used to see these bloody martyrs, absolutely rotten with a cold, sat at their desks bravely doing **** all other than mainlining Lemsip and Kleenex, a few days later and the office is half empty.
I hoped people might have learned something but no, they're all out their with their "breathing" and their "touching things." There are some who see others wearing masks as a personal affront. "What are you wearing that bloody thing for?" Uh, because they want to? Which really is the answer to the OP too, isn't it.
I think Ebola mortality is 25-40% so you’re more likely to survive than die.
I think you may be mistaken
As above, twice this year i've been in and we've had someone coughing, sneezing and doing the martyr dance, then i've caught something and been out of commission for a week, honestly, we had the whole COVID thing and now people are back on the 'if you're not dying' routine, we never learn anything in this country about large scale events, like banking, boom and bust, Covid, etc.
Is there any other disease known to man that has this property?
AIDS?
Many others before mass immunisation? Can you get the good kind of Polio?
I think you may be mistaken
And according to that article, that's taking into account early treatment. Which probably skews a lot of modern data, there's likely plenty of things which will almost certainly kill you if left untreated.
Aside:
Is anyone still using hand sanitisers in buildings? Noticed how empty most of them are? I visited the zoo recently, they've got dispensers there (at least some of which I'm fairly certain predated Covid for when entering / exiting certain areas). Every one I pushed was bone dry, I probably increased my risk of infection from all those buttons. I'm going to start carrying gel again I think.
Literally the 2nd sentence on the Wikipedia page says that 75% of polio cases are asymptomatic. It would have been easier to find that out yourself than type the question here.
And similarly, the Wikipedia page says many flu infections are asymptomatic (the cited ref says over 50%).
As for why people have such a derisive attitude towards those who report moderate symptoms as likely flu, I have no idea where they get this from, that’s the point of my question really. Maybe in some cases it is just a light cold, but quite likely many of them are a mild case of flu, especially if it’s in flu season and others around them are coming down with it worse.
