Horrible cold & flu virus spreading that isn't covid - yet no restrictions?!

[BlueLens]

AIBU to point this out. There's a wave of illness going about, which is not covid, that is flooring people. Twice recently I've caught it and both times have tested negative for Covid. It's hit me really hard - sore ears, blocked sinuses and persistent cough, aches, chills and fever.

The same symptoms seem to be making a sweep of my local area, at school and at work. Hospitals and old age residential homes must be experiencing similar. Yet no restrictions are put in place like they were in 2020? Or were the lockdowns and restrictions all for nothing?!

I'm genuinely bewildered by this, hence the post looking for some insight.

Well you said yourself that it’s not covid. We locked down before as covid was new and unknown and people were dying. Now we have vaccines. It’s less dangerous for most the the population. So there are unlikely to be restrictions for a bad cold/flu virus.

So Covid hospitalised a number of people in multiple different countries and increase death tolls drastically - which is what prompted the various restrictions / lock down cycles

i would assume this illness isn’t having the same impact / effect hence the lack of restrictions.

There are flu bugs every year. Always have been.

COVID was initially a systemic disease that had the ability to kill people. No one in the world had any immunity to it. Large numbers needed hospitalised.

I work in healthcare - believe me, the nasty cold you describe hasn't had any impact on us.

Well if its not fatal then no it doesn't need restrictions.

I find the posts talking about how lockdown was wrong entertaining, did you not see what happened in North Italy where doctors were having to ration ventelators essentially deciding which of their patients they would kill.

And the hospitals in the UK were getting over run. If a new strain of flu causes the same damage then yes intervention would be necessary, if it is not causing hospitalizations and death then no a lock down would if course not be needed.

What restrictions do you suggest?

The unprecedented draconian restrictions placed on us in the Covid pandemic were originally purposed with managing hospital capacity.

As cold as it sounds, we can’t turn to restrictions each time a few people sneeze, and deaths temporarily spike.

Aside from the civil liberties argument (which should never be cast aside as it was in 2020/21) look what it did to our economy. I’m sure you’d be the first to be screaming how unjust the world is should inflation spike and you lose your job.

I hope to god that this is a goady thread and you don’t genuinely think restrictions should be looked at.

It's called Flu,

It was around before, it'll be around after.

Not every illness is covid.

Did you get the flu vaccine, advised for older people and those at risk? Flu can be really nasty too, people die from flu every year, but not in the numbers that Covid caused and there was no vaccine for Covid initially.

It was the number of people needing hospital treatment that was the issue with Covid.

There's always horrible viruses around but they don't necessarily put so many people in hospital. As we know lockdowns don't stop you getting ill they just slow the spread down.

A bad cold doesn't require a lockdown because it isn't hospitalising or killing people in large numbers like COVID did.

You can't be genuinely bewildered by this quite obvious difference!

Unless people are dying from it in record numbers, it doesn't need a lock down

Surely you must understand the difference between an unpleasant virus going round your local area and a global pandemic that put millions of people world wide in intensive care, though?

Yes, some viruses are really unpleasant. But unless hospitals all over the world are being overwhelmed by people who need putting on ventilators, it's not even remotely akin to the Covid pandemic.

What would you like to see happen op?

People get ill, it's part of life. Do you really think anyone would follow restrictions? People should make more effort to stay healthy and avoid illness, like handwashing, masks if they are sick, healthy eating, gut health, outdoor exercise.

My husband has been really unwell for the last 4-5 weeks; a myriad of different things, with each week bringing something new. After developing a rash and joint pain/swelling, he went to the GP. They were great and done a range of blood tests. It's Parvovirus! We hadn't heard of it outside of animals but it's actually not that uncommon in humans and he has had the full textbook of symptoms. Seems it can hang around for months but isn't contagious once the rash is out.

Lots of unexpected viruses out there, it seems.

Yeah, husband and I have had it this week, it's a particularly rough cold. I'm not normally knocked by cold/flu type viruses but this one had me in bed for a couple of days. They go around every year and always have, sometimes worse than others, sometimes nastier symptoms than others.

Do you suggest we lock down the country every time there's a bad cold going around?

YABU. There is no evidence that the current "virus" is killing people at the same rate that Covid did at first. There's a massive difference between the perfectly normal cold-like symptoms that may be uncomfortable but unlikely to kill you and Covid which killed huge numbers of people Worldwide!

What sort of restrictions exactly? People aren't being hospitalised or dying - colds and flu type viruses are endemic so we just have to live with them. Take your own precautions if you are bothered - masks, hand sanitiser, avoiding crowded places - but you can't expect the general population to be that bothered about a perfectly normal, albeit unpleasant, virus.

Well is the death rate high or is it just a lot of people feeling miserable?

I suspect you've forgotten just how dire things were in March 2020.

People got colds before Covid and didn't lockdown or restrict movement of entire populations, it was expected that being careful about infecting other people was the sensible way to behave. Ddad has had COPD for many years and the slightest cold can lead to chest infections and worse so if one of us has a cold or cough we don't go near him, I didn't need the government to tell me that.............

They carnt lockdown for cold and flu. Where would it end?

@CelesteCunningham

"Well is the death rate high or is it just a lot of people feeling miserable?"

I don't have a clue because the current death rate isn't being publicised like it was under Covid.

Maybe if the published the death rate of anyone who had a cold or flu virus at the time of their death or was even suspected of having a cold / flu virus then the reaction would be different.

But I suspect that the public would be unwilling to follow the mass hysteria of Covid a second time.

Presumably you can remember before 2020 when there were colds, flu, sickness bugs and a thousand and one other viruses at any given time. We didn't lock down then so why would we now? What a strange question.
Do you understand that the only reason we locked down for Covid was that it was a brand new virus and we didnt know what was going to happen.
If we locked down everytime there was a cold or flu outbreak we would never leave home.

Why would you expect restrictions to be put in place for what sounds like a cold or at worst a flu virus?

Do you understand that the reason restrictions were imposed during the COVID pandemic wasn’t to stop people getting ill it was to prevent people dying and to stop the NHS seizing up?

If we imposed restrictions every time there was a bug going around the country would grind to a halt.

You think we should have lockdowns every time there is a virus in your area!? (I don’t know anyone that has had what you are describing lately). Also, it’s a bad cold/flu - you and the majority of people won’t die from it.