It's 'Just' the Flu

Greetings,

The expression "It's just the flu." is of concern. In our current situation it is being used to refer to what novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is not. This is not just a case of the flu as the mortality rates show. The flu is not "just" the flu either.

Most people associate the flu with a little discomfort, a cough, a fever, runny nose, a couple of days of work and you're back to normal again. No problems at all, right? This is the impression people have of the the flu or influenza. The facts about the flu are quite a bit more different and needs attention paid to them.

"a 2019 study estimated 99,000 - 200,000 deaths from lower respiratory tract infections directly caused by influenza." Paget, John et al. "Global mortality associated with seasonal influenza epidemics: New burden estimates and predictors for the GLaMOR Project." Journal of global health vol. 9,2 (2019): 020421. doi:10.7189/jogh.09.020421 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6815659/).

Of course, this is "just" the flu. Those numbers are worldwide and they really do not compare to the COVID-19 numbers, but flu season is upon us. Do we really need something on top of the concerns about COVID-19? Do we really need people sick from both of these things increasing the potential for increased mortality rates?

The other thing is that there is a vaccine for the yearly flu strain every year. It protects against most of the strains of the flu. Yes, it does not protect against them all, but protection from some is better than no protection at all. This is something that people can do and they don't. Why? It's because it's "just" the flu.

People don't bother with the flu vaccine so they may get sick. Then when they get sick they don't stay home until they are better again, spreading the flu to others. Flu season is the worst time for productivity for all sectors. It costs Australia $34 billion dollars in productivity each year when workers being present and $7 billion while workers are absent (https://thesector.com.au/2019/02/27/flu-costs-australian-employers-7-billion-in-lost-productivity/).

There is the historical example of the Spanish Flu from 1918 - 1920 which cost 50,000,000 deaths, small in comparison to the current crisis, but it was "just the flu". (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu) It was also a pandemic, just like the COVID pandemic which we are experiencing now, and there are always new strains that are waiting in the wings.

The flu needs to be taken as seriously as any contagious disease that has the potential to cause deaths in the population. Hopefully people will learn lessons from the COVID pandemic and apply these to the flu and realise that it is not "just" the flu. This concept is one that needs to be erased.

Cheers,

Henry.