I'm worried I may have asymptomatic flu. Where can I get a test?

[Treesofwood]

Just that really. Flu can be very dangerous and can lead to ME. I would hate to unknowingly pass it on.

@Treesofwood

In Australia 2017 the hospitals were almost overwhelmed. Thousand of people died. 123 people died in Victoria of Covid with an average age of 81 and a State of Disaster is announced. People are assaulted by police officers for not carrying ID and all locked in their houses. But transmitting asymptomatic flu was fine. Their flu season preceded ours and Americas . So they also allowed people to travel with it. Unless it can fly on its own.

You've conflated a number of things there. The 2017 flu season was nasty, but that is the nature of influenza- it mutates. Once it does mutate, it can be added to the vaccine, though - and Europe and the US did benefit from an improved vaccine that year. Even at its worst, though, it still isn't as virulent as Covid-19 (and we haven't finished the year yet).

Fact check: Victorians haven't been locked in their homes.

Sorry in lockdown in their homes.

My point is whether or not this is actually about saving lives? Because we could have done this before? If not, why not? Why is 123 covid deaths a disaster? Are we going to have to carry on like this in the future as not wearing a mask is a risk to others health? Even though they are still allowed to make poor choices about their own health? Not everyone obviously, but I know more than a few people who are evangelical about mask wearing due to them being vulnerable, but continue to make poor health decisions which increase their own risk of Covid and a wide range of other illnesses.

Goldenomber but we appear to have moved from not overwhelming health services to Zero Covid. And concerns about Long Covid now that death rates are very low.

And is that just about saving lives? Because if so we can do that in other ways too? But no one used to care that much about the risks to other vulnerable people when you went to work with a virus. Or sent your kids into school after being sick the night before because you were sure it was just something they ate.

@Treesofwood

Goldenomber but we appear to have moved from not overwhelming health services to Zero Covid. And concerns about Long Covid now that death rates are very low.

No, we’re still pretty interested in not overwhelming health services.

I agree with you Treesofwood. I had pneumonia a few years ago after flu and nearly died. Flu can be very nasty but there is no hysterical response to it.
Added to that, if there were no flu vaccine, so Covid and flu could be compared, I imagine that we would all be pretty horrified at what flu could do in care homes- but would not all be locking ourselves in our homes and stressing out about sending our children back to school.

Goldenomber Interested in not overwhelming health services with Covid patients. We had huge empty field hospitals. Opened with massive fanfare by (still contagious) health ministers. And hardly used. The NHS was not overwhelmed. It is not overwhelmed now. And people who are very ill are still not getting the support they need. Due to covid.

I get the flu vaccine every year. My children all through primary have been given the vaccine at school. How is that in any way comparable to Covid?

The NHS was not overwhelmed. It is not overwhelmed now. And people who are very ill are still not getting the support they need. Due to covid.

Yes. It was not overwhelmed then and it is not overwhelmed now, due to the measures we took to prevent that. Shutting down all non-Covid services was a part of that and it was awful and it is not something we should be keen to repeat.

If you look at countries/places where the virus hasn’t been contained, hospitals got very overwhelmed. They didn’t stay open for non-essential services either. Wuhan in January, northern Italy in spring, places like India and Mexico and Brazil and Iran now.

Why do you think that just stopping all the testing and distancing and masks would not risk the health services getting overwhelmed here? Do you think the virus has just agreed to stop bothering now or something?

Hanging basket, I don't know if you're replying to me, but what I mean is that most people don't have a flu vaccine and carry on as normal each winter. If you and your children for some reason couldn't have it, would you really feel scared to send them to school and wear a mask in shops? But mortality figures in care homes would probably be shockingly high even though for most of us flu would be a trivial illness. Even with a vaccine thousands of elderly people die flu, but we don't close down the economy and deny children education.

from flu

Can we move on from the flu correlation? Covid is totally different beast from the flu. It is silly to compare them.

Comparing Covid to flu is a common thing to do when engaging in rationalisation.

Rationalisation is not quite the same as denial, but it is another technique people use to minimise the issue.

Covid is not flu. Covid is Covid, it is serious enough to affect life on a societal level and we don't yet know enough about it to confidently predict what will happen this winter.

The countries who reacted most to Covid at the outset are now in a better state globally. The countries that rationalised and minimised the risk are in a worse state.

@Timeforanewone

I get you OP. There were more excess deaths from flu in 2017/18 than we’ve had from corona virus this year. Yes it barely made the headlines. There was no shutting down, no testing , no isolation. People just died. Why is that?

That's not correct.

The 'Surveillance of influenza and other respiratory viruses in the UK: Winter 2017 to 2018' , report by Public Health England gives a figure for the number of deaths associated with influenza of 15,969 for England for 2017/2018 (with 15,004 of those being in the over 65 age group).
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploa...

I would argue that it may be entirely appropriate to compare flu and Covid, given they are both fairly trivial for most, and very dangerous for a minority. It may well be useful in order to contextualise our response.

@Mydogdoesntlisten

I would argue that it may be entirely appropriate to compare flu and Covid, given they are both fairly trivial for most, and very dangerous for a minority. It may well be useful in order to contextualise our response.

But no medics consider it a relevant comparison.

Covid is nothing like flu. People only use this comparison to diminish the seriousness of Covid.

In fact there is now discussion about renaming Covid to more accurately reflect it's whole system impacts, not just respiratory.

I get that they are different in terms of the effect on the body, and in terms of treatment, but I'm not meaning to compare that as it is irrelevant. What I mean is that we can compare our response in terms of shutting down schools and businesses etc. for something which for most of us is not a problem.
At the same time, it may help to focus us on protecting the vulnerable (and I'm not entirely sure how to do that) while accepting for most of us Covid is trivial and so not overreacting.

@Treesofwood

Chanceencounter. What I mean is we should all take responsibility to ensure we are not unknowingly passing on any diseases.

You've missed the point.

Flu and "other diseases" as you put it have known prevention methods - like I'm going to have my flu jab and pneumonia jab in a week's time, so it is highly unlikely I will get flu.

Corona virus current has no prevention therapies in place, and it is highly infectious because the majority dont have any previous immunity, so comparing it to flu is a bit dumb. Is this some sort of sick joke?

Talk to the people with Long COVID who continue to suffer significant fatigue, respiratory damage and long lasting organ damage months and months after they initially contacted the disease, and ask if it's a matter to be flippant about.

Chanceencounter. What I mean is we should all take responsibility to ensure we are not unknowingly passing on any diseases.

Very soon we'll have no time to do anything else, as all our time will be taken up doing the million and one things others think we should do, in order to be "responsible".

@Mydogdoesntlisten

I get that they are different in terms of the effect on the body, and in terms of treatment, but I'm not meaning to compare that as it is irrelevant. What I mean is that we can compare our response in terms of shutting down schools and businesses etc. for something which for most of us is not a problem. At the same time, it may help to focus us on protecting the vulnerable (and I'm not entirely sure how to do that) while accepting for most of us Covid is trivial and so not overreacting.

How is it an overreaction when I for example know of 3 people who went off to Greece (while we're in a global pandemic?? Go figure!) and tested positive for CV on their return, it was as quick as that to contract the virus.

People who think "naaah it can never affect most people" are nuts. It can affect anyone, and they can then pass it on to their family and friends, if they are as blasé about it as to go off on a holiday where the virus is rife.

Overreaction on terms of effect. Yes, of course we can get it, but unless we are very elderly it is unlikely to cause us a problem (and I accept for an unfortunate tiny minority this is not true, as is true of flu- see my comment above re my post flu pneumonia which could have killed me according to the medics when I was in resus).
What I am saying is that we don't close down for flu as we accept the risk to most is tiny.
Obviously that doesn't mean we should ignore the vulnerable who obviously do benefit from flu vaccination (which most of us don't seek out although it costs next to nothing in most chemists) and which of course isn't available for Covid.
I just think a more targeted approach may be more helpful for the vulnerable and the rest of us should get a grip and get on with life

Clearly we are not going back into full lockdown unless the shit really hits the fan. But neither can we do a collective fairy story and pretend we can just act as if it never happened.

By the time the virus has been here a full year we will know so so much more, hopefully without too many deaths.

If I never here 'get a grip' again in relation to Covid it'll be too soon. Only people who don't understand the world can think they know better than every serious government on the planet.

Daisychain I know people suffering like that who have ME, Lymes and Fibromyalgia. ME or CFS can be triggered by a viral infection. Lymes is bacterial, but hard to treat with conventional antibiotics. I don't know as much about Fibromyalgia but is very debilitating.