Fed up of hearing about the flu

[SpoonBaloon]

I know I’m being unreasonable but am I the only one who’s getting wound up by the constant coverage of the flu on every national news outlet?

It is December. Of course the flu is going around! Every winter we hear about the NHS being overwhelmed.

I can accept minor coverage but it’s been the main story for days on end and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to stop! And I know the flu kills and people need to be aware to take precautions but surely people don’t need it to be pointed out to them that they have an increased chance of catching the cold or flu in the run up to Christmas?

I was deathly ill with it last year but luckily have managed to avoid it up to now.

I don’t understand how your stroppy demands for information relate to my post.

To be fair the mass hysteria in the news doesn’t help. People will panic and head to a&e the second they think they’ve got the flu.

Because the thick buggers seem to think it's a government conspiracy and that virusus don't exist and it's just your body doing a winter detox, so the uptake is pathetic.

Personally I think people who have that attitude shouldn't bother doctors when they get it. They can 'detox" at home.

I'm eligible for a vaccine and used to get one every year when the GP would send out a letter announcing dates of a drive through clinic.

Then they stopped doing the drive through clinic, stopped sending letters, and sent messages through an app that I dont have (or so said the receptionist when I asked last year). This year they sent a letter telling me I could organise a free jab at the pharmacy or my GP. I gave up after the second pharmacy saying they didnt have any available, took days to actually get a GP receptionist on the phone and she told me to check more pharmacies...

So I just stopped bothering.

To be fair it’s 2025. If you can use Mumsnet you could use the NHS app.

I think starmer would love to have his pandemic moment and an excuse to lock us all up.

This year's flu vaccine offers protection against several different flu strains. One of the flu strains mutated in the Summer, and the vaccine for this Winter was created before this mutation. However, there will still be some protection against the mutated strain, and it is still absolutely worthwhile for people to get the vaccine.

Those of us who are vaccinated against the flu are less likely to be hospitalised; however dreadful we may feel it is likely we'd be feeling even worse, and worse for longer, without a vaccine.

Flu vaccinations never claim to offer 100% protection. They are, however, one of the best tools we have in reducing the severity of cases and helping to reduce the spread.

It's a highly-mutated strain that has hit earlier than usual, is causing a larger number of severe complications & hospital admissions than usual, & as yet shows no sign of having peaked.

Spanish flu was just a highly-mutated strain of flu but it killed more people than World War I.

You can look at the 2025 flu season in Australia to give you a better idea of how bad this strain is, not only the highest number of notifiable infections & very high rates of hospital admissions, but also a much longer season than usual. Flu outstripped all other respiratory infections for ICU admissions.

Add the expected circulation of RSV & of now-endemic Covid, & an NHS that has been pushed into crisis every winter for too many years & none of us should be blasé about this year's flu.

Nah, COVID is a bitch even in healthy people, I've realised. Come back and claim it's not bad once you've had it about 6 times and the 7th time you get it you're coughing your guts up for 10 weeks so much so that people in work or at meetings look at you like you have the plague and you've destroyed your bladder with all the coughing. That's me. Nasal sprays did nothing. Antibiotics did nothing. I've not felt so unwell that I've had to take to my bed, except for one day when it was more rest that I needed than anything, due to not being able to sleep from coughing.

It's a wierd one because while I wasn't acutely ill with it, but I've been chronically low level ill for like 20% of the year. it's been absolutely horrible and draining and I just couldn't seem to properly shake it all that time, not able to sleep, and easily fatigued. I THINK it's finally showing signs of going, but I feel that my immune system is destroyed now and if I get the flu right after I will be PISSED. OFF. I work with little ones so quite likely.

We shouldn't be dismissing novel viruses as nothing because the long-term effects on our bodies are only just being discovered.

The coverage worked for me, paid 25 quid for a vaccine on Tuesday. Didn't it use to cost about 13 only a couple of years ago? Ah well, hope it offers some protection.

The whole reporting is hyperbolic. The NHS is not fit for purpose and neither are our politicians. Yes this sounds gloomy.. but really. I reckon lots of young people are catching it as their parents haven't consented to the flu vaccine which is given in schools free of charge. My kids' school sent an email encouraging parents to take their dc to catch vaccine sessions.

Where in the UK are you? I phoned the GP on Monday and got the jab yesterday.

Quite - the sheer pig-headed irrationality of some people beggars belief. I can’t understand it either. As if asking people to get a vaccine, take reasonable precautions, wear a mask or at least stay away from others if you’re sick is some sort of personal affront. “It’s not my fault, it’s just the NHS and the government being nasty to me and it’s all one big conspiracy”. FFS!

I have a cold, I'm pregnant. I got my flu jab at 8 weeks. I have a temperature of 36.4, so absolutely fine. Aside from feeling a bit poopy, I'm okay. I've had flu twice in my life and I don't currently feel like I've gone through rounds with Mike Tyson. I'm now 26 weeks along and it feels like my baby boy is trying to kick the plug out.

Get the jab everyone - I’ve had the jab since it started donkeys years ago. Think it was £10 back then so it hadn’t increased in price that much. All our family have it and the grandchildren get it via nasal spray at school.

I currently have flu and COVID and desperately wish I'd had vaccinations.

My parents are in Australia. Father 76 and with diabetes . Mother 75 and has copd. My mother in total spent 5. Months from December last year to august in hospital with flu and then complications thereof. I was phoned early January to do the emergency dash. I got on a plane at Heathrow not knowing if she would be alive when I landed. Note, it was not even the peak of it then. It’s no joke.

This is correct (havent RTFT, apologies). I had a meeting with infection prevention control today, I work in an acute hospital, and they said the same. There's has been multiple mutations of this strain of influenza which means the vaccine is not as effective.

I think if anything this shows we have a massively unhealthy population in this country and we need to do something. ASAP.

Don’t read it then simple.

We weren’t allowed to start vaccinating adults until 1st October this year whereas we usually start as soon as the vaccines come in September. I wonder if that’s exacerbated all this.

What do you suggest is done?

I'd love to know who gives the media the directive to hammer stores about some topics, but completely ignore others that don't fit a certain narrative. No use watching the 'news' anymore.

And day after day as happens every year, many many frail elderly and vulnerable people refuse it. More again today.

A reform of school meals. Nationwide initiatives to make healthy food cheaper. I would like to see an element of UC/child benefit replaced with the equivalent of snap benefits which can only be spent on certain things. Begin teaching nutrition young. More exercise in school and longer school days to allow for more physical activity.

I don’t think it’s an unhealthy population as such , but definitely an aging one. You can’t blame any of the governments for not trying to get people to make better food choices , sugar taxes and information around staying healthy , but you can’t stop people aging and we are living longer too.