Something strange is going on… winter bugs

[Hazless]

Is it just me or is something strange going on? Nearly everyone I know is sick. Levels are off the chart. My son had 10 in his class last Friday.

I’ve just had a really awful respiratory thing. It started with an awful sudden sore throat (not the usual place, lower down) then progressed to fevers for 3 days (I never get a fever, I’m an adult and can’t recall the last time), pain all over, chills, body tingles, the worst headache of my life that two types of painkiller didn’t touch.

Day 5, Now I’m left with a lingering cough and snotty nose and everything smells and tastes disgusting. Even air from outside stinks like the inside of my rotting nose! It’s gross. I’ve lost weight because everything tastes so disgusting. I look awful… grey skin and dark Circles. All my kids are poorly too but seem not as bad as me.

i also felt extremely delirious and depressed during this bug. I’ve never felt so down. It was like something switched in my brain. It was very sudden and hit me like a train. I’ve not had that before.

not covid as both tests I took negative.

im not one for conspiracy theories but is something going on? Is there a new strain of covid? I’ve never had a bug like this before. And I’ve never known so many people sick at one time. What on earth is going on? It can’t just be from lock downs many months ago.

I think there are lots of potential factors that PP have nailed. Regular flu season, disgusting hygiene in public places, people more sensitive to infection due to lack of socialising etc.

However, I was coming here to say the same as @ganachee. There are strong suggestions that COVID causes widespread systemic problems that persist, which is why it's not treated as being insignificant, even if the symptoms appear to be mild.

Obviously lots more research needs to be done but scientists think that COVID disrupts your immune system for many months, possibly even longer. There's lots of links to the research online but they're quite hard going to plough through. This is a simplified explanation - www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/even-mild-covid-cases-can-have-lasting-effects-on

To me, it seems entirely plausible that such a rampant virus as COVID-19 would potentially mess up the immune system and make other bugs and infections much worse.

Lol

I heard a GP on tv the other day saying because we were more isolated during the pandemic, our immune systems are less robust than they should be.

having says that, I don’t know anyone that’s been unwell recently.

There's really nothing strange about lots of people being ill before Xmas. I remember when I was a child some years there being less than 10 people in my class at this time etc.

You had a virus. There's a bad strain of flu going round this year and lots of it. Could have been flu, could have been one of the millions of other viruses around. It's not particularly odd. You not being ill often doesn't mean you can never get ill, and it's normal even as an adult to develop a fever occasionally

Immunity in adults just doesn’t disappear because we had lockdowns. That’s not how our immune systems work. Children haven’t had as much exposure to infections as they would have at a young age so it’s different for them and yes it has had an affect as they play catch up.

Covid is mutating all the time and we aren’t tracking it as well because of lower testing. There are some concerns developing that some newer strains don’t respond to some of the treatments we have in place

Research increasingly shows that Covid affects our immunity.. So easier to catch and harder to fight off traditional winter viruses if we’ve had that.

Flu is rife and many people don’t realise they have it because they don’t think they are sick enough we all respond differently to infection.

I work on a paeds ward and I’ve known so many testing positive for flu ( one swab tests for multi viruses) usual viruses are around too of course.

oh and it’s not vaccines. I’ve had all mine via work and I’ve worked with all the infection craziness and I’ve not had anything this year bar covid in summer which was ‘mild’ and I fought off. Oh and Im still wearing masks in work… that hasn’t affected my immunity either🙄

Covid hospitalisations are on the rise and are currently higher than flu hospitalisations (which are also very high). I think it’s fundamentally a twin-demic, possibly made worse by immune damage from previous bouts of covid.

Exactly!

But this is something different / worse than other years before covid. Never have me or any of my family been so ill since we were children / teens. It’s gone on and on for weeks. I know 4 family’s who have had all their extended family cancel for Christmas leaving them with just their Nuclear family, a couple with no food.
Thats never happened before in my 30+ years of being an adult.

Something to do with Putin more like

Why does covid always have to be ‘rampant’ what the hell does that even mean?

Don't trust the lateral flow tests, they're useless. I had covid and every left was negative but the PCR was positive.

OMG😂😂😂

I think it’s flu (i.e. a respiratory tract infection caused by influenza virus). People often don’t realize just how terrible flu symptoms can be. Abrupt onset with high fever & chills, sore throat, dry cough, severe headache, severe muscle ache and joint ache, marked fatigue and malaise are all typical symptoms of flu. Unlike common “cold”(usually caused by a rhinovirus), flu can lead to serious complications due to bacterial suprainfection (e.g., bronchitis, pneumonia, sinusitis, otitis media). If your symptoms persist or become worse, you should visit your GP. Meanwhile, take care of yourself, make sure to stay hydrated and eat nutritious, easy-to-digest foods (for example, chicken broth), and rest a lot. Your body needs time to recuperate, so be patient and try to avoid doing anything that requires a lot of energy. I hope you’ll feel better soon.

Covid impacts the body's T cells, ie your immune system. Multiple bouts of Covid 'because it's just a cold and people don't die from colds' have impacted peoples immune systems. It's a mass immune system event.

There was signs it affects the immune system in June 2020 there are 30 research papers I can grasp off the top of my head on it

Everyones health and immune system are damaged from the two covid years. no wonder everyone is ill.

your T cells die all the time. After an infection the (virus specific)T cells which have expanded to fight the virus contract (due) leaving a much smaller pool of circulating memory T cells.
a lot of these articles about T cells after covid lack suitable controls in my opinion and most of them are in fairly low impact journals so probably not that scientifically robust. However the general public are picking up anything they’ve read and it gets spread around social media and Twitter as if it’s fact. There is no robust evidence yet that covid affects our immune system and even if it did I’m not sure there’s much we can do about it. Although I would suggest topping up your vitamin d levels every time you are ill

Further to my comment about the disagreements around the concept of ‘ immunity debt’ this journalist in an article in the New Scientist says the confusion is partly because the term “immunity debt” means different things to different people. They argue the idea more people will come down with viruses this year as they have been less exposed the previous 2 years is true and is what the term immunity debt can be referring to. They say though commentators who argue that the current higher levels of respiratory infections show that children’s immune systems have been damaged by their lack of exposure to the normal childhood infections has no scientific basis.

www.newscientist.com/article/2348968-do-we-have-immunity-debt-and-how-could-it-affect-our-infection-risk/

"Why does covid always have to be ‘rampant’ what the hell does that even mean?"

In answer to that, covid spreads really easily. It's very transmissible. So one person with covid might spread it to say 8 people (depends on the strain and the situation) whereas with another virus they might spread it to 1 or 2. It's airborne transmission so it hangs around in the air like cigarette smoke rather than spread through droplets and fomites (where transmission can be reduced quite effectively by hand washing and covering coughs and sneezes).

Or people could be referring to the multi-system effects. It's not unique in this, but it's a nasty one. HTH

DillDanding · Today 16:43
I heard a GP on tv the other day saying because we were more isolated during the pandemic, our immune systems are less robust than they should be.

Look at what’s happening in China.

Of course there are lots of viruses going around partly because there always are at this time of year, and partly because a lot of people had very little exposure to viruses last winter so don't have last winter's immunity.

I do think that although of course some people are ill as described on the thread, quite a lot of people have completely lost all sense of proportion.

A lot of colleagues are taking repeated blocks of two weeks off (two weeks off in November, back for two weeks, off again for two weeks, back for a week, off again until now etc.) Not because they haven't been off long enough but because they're being extremely careful of themselves and going off sick with the slightest scratch in their throat or snivel, and thinking they're being a hero if they come back within 36 hours of having last coughed.

People didn't used to take time off for ordinary colds but now a huge amount of time off is due to people massively over reacting and believing every slightly scratchy throat or running nose is covid or influenza or a potentially serious respiratory virus and going straight into "patient/ victim mode" and not coming to work for weeks.

I don't think they're faking, but that the psychological response to very, very minor illness has gone absolutely haywire!

Spoken like someone who is so typically brainwashed and has zero knowledge of what they are talking about.

The vaccines have certainly reduced people’s immunity and the proof is out there if you’re prepared to look.

oh dear. Is Bill Gates controlling us through microchips in the vaccine too?

This epidemiologist argues Covid is now causing many to be infected in China since they lifted restrictions recently due to lower vaccine uptake for the third shot amongst the over 60s, problems with the vaccine itself and some of the variants taking off there are more virulent than the original Wuhan strain.

not really weird people werent going ot the last two winters now we've all got lower immunity

thik theres a new strain of covid

It’s not really strange at all. Lockdown meant that our immune systems weren’t being constantly challenged like they usually are so now colds and flu and other non Covid viruses are spreading again. Surely that’s no great mystery?!

That's a misunderstanding of what immunity debt means. There's a good explanation upthread.