Comment by tarsinge
12 hours ago
But flu isn’t just a cold, it’s a serious disease. If they are sick to the point they have fever then they can’t really afford to not rest as it has a cost in the form of longer health debt. And even short term, by letting the fever run and resting and being 100% operational can be more productive than being a zombie on medications for weeks.
People mix common cold with flu all the time. If you have the flu you usually can't even go out of bed, even with medication.
Not to mention it is an infectious disease that they will spread to other people if they go to work.
By the time they can tell it's "the flu" and not just "a cold", they've been infecting everyone for days already.
Not to mention, cold is an infectious disease too (it's literally the same disease, just a weaker variant caused by strains that evolved their potency away), it too will spread to other people if they go to work.
> Not to mention, cold is an infectious disease too (it's literally the same disease, just a weaker variant caused by strains that evolved their potency away)
“The cold” is actually any of a wide variety of different viral diseases (caused by various forms of rhinovirus, coronavirus [0], and, I think, a few other kinds of viruses), none of which are flu (influenza virus). It is not a less potent flu.
[0] so calling COVID-19 “a bad cold” is correct from a certain point of view, despite being substantively misleading.
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Some people colloquially call a cold "the flu", but the common cold is very different to influenza. Please don't spread misinformation.
"Common cold" is what we call flu/COVID/bunch of other stuff when symptoms aren't severe enough to bother checking. There is no "cold virus", as cold isn't a specific sickness but a destination; it's a catch-all for respiratory pathogens that evolve their potency away.
By the time someone is able to tell they have "the flu", they should've been on a sick leave for 2-3 days already.
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