Can we please stop spreading the same tired old myths about flu?

[AutisticAndMore]

The ones about not being able to get out of bed if there was a £50 note on the floor and talk of “real flu”.

Flu can be asymptomatic, mild, moderate or severe. It’s still “real flu” regardless of severity.

It’s a tiresome and potentially dangerous myth that it always has to be severe. And no you might not know for definite that you have flu unless you test for it/are tested but you don’t have to be confined to your bed to have flu.

https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/yahoo-life-why-does-the-flu-make-some-people-sick-but-not-others

My late dad had Asian flu in the 60s ( before I was born) and he was ill for weeks. It was a bad outbreak.
His GP blamed air travel for spreading it around

Surely we should just stop differentiating between colds, flu and Covid etc and just call them all viral illnesses that have varying severity. You can feel ok with a virus, a tad rough, at deaths door or a severe virus can kill you

How do you tell the difference between a cold and flu? I always assumed it was severity, or at the very least that that was the socially acceptable way of explaining what was wrong with you when ill, i.e. Temperature, and achey and very ill is flu, bunged up, headache, can feel very tired and ill but no temperature is a cold. Sounds like the less severe one could be flu too, but there is no way to tell that.

You can’t, unless you’re tested, flu is caused by the influenza virus, common colds are caused by lots of different viruses including coronaviruses, rhinovirus, adenovirus.