Flu season is in beginning, and preparation is your key to staying healthy. Unfortunately, despite your best efforts, the flu can still strike. If it does, early detection and appropriate responses are essential to treating this draining bug. There’s just one problem: How do you know if you actually have the flu?
The only way to know for certain if your sickness is indeed the flu is with a flu test. But then there are also some identifiable signs that could mean you need to see a doctor, and other signs that you likely don’t have the flu.
Influenza (flu) and the common cold are both contagious respiratory illnesses, but they are caused by different viruses. Flu is caused by influenza viruses only, whereas the common cold can be caused by a number of different viruses, including rhinoviruses, parainfluenza, and seasonal coronaviruses.
Why should we take this seriously?
Flu or Cold?
Similarities between Flu and Covid:
Both COVID-19 and flu can have varying degrees of signs and symptoms, ranging from no symptoms (asymptomatic) to severe symptoms. Common symptoms that COVID-19 and flu share include:
- Fever or feeling feverish/having chills
- Cough
- Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
- Fatigue (tiredness)
- Sore throat
- Runny or stuffy nose
- Muscle pain or body aches
- Headache
- Vomiting and diarrhea
- Change in or loss of taste or smell, although this is more frequent with COVID-19.
Differences of Covid:
- If a person has COVID-19, it could take them longer to experience symptoms than if they had flu.
- Typically, a person experiences symptoms about 5 days after being infected, but symptoms can appear 2 to 14 days after infection.
- It’s possible for people to spread the virus for about 2 days before experiencing signs or symptoms (or possibly earlier) and remain contagious for at least 10 days after signs or symptoms first appeared. If someone is asymptomatic or their symptoms go away, it’s possible to remain contagious for at least 10 days after testing positive for COVID-19. People who are hospitalized with severe disease and people with weakened immune systems can be contagious for 20 days or longer.
- While the virus that causes COVID-19 and flu viruses are thought to spread in similar ways, the virus that causes COVID-19 is generally more contagious than flu viruses. Also, COVID-19 has been observed to have more superspreading events than flu. This means the virus that causes COVID-19 can quickly and easily spread to a lot of people and result in continual spreading among people as time progresses.
- Overall, COVID-19 seems to cause more serious illnesses in some people. Serious COVID-19 illness resulting in hospitalization and death can occur even in healthy people. Some people that had COVID-19 can go on to develop post-COVD conditions or multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS)
Source: Internet & Others
The views expressed in this article should not be considered as a substitute for a physician’s advice. Always make sure to seek a doctor or a professional’s advice before proceeding with the home treatment plan.