How to tell the difference between influenza and Covid-19 coronavirus

Influenza virus is not a Covid-19 coronavirus. Covid-19 coronavirus is not an influenza virus. Both are respiratory viruses. Both can infect cells in the respiratory tract. But they are not the same.

The two are completely different viruses. The virus is very small and doesn’t have a small name tag, so how do you know if you’ve infected one or both?

An important thing to keep in mind is that the Covid-19 coronavirus, also known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV2), is a new virus.In this case, the novel does not mean that it appeared in the novel 50 Shade of Gray. Instead, the novel means something new to humans. This happens when the virus used to infect other animals first gains the ability to infect humans. This means that your immune system probably has never seen SARS-CoV2 before this pandemic. As a result, your immune system will behave like an inexperienced man on your first date. However, on this date the sphere is covered with spikes. As a result, your immune system is so confused that you say “you didn’t mention spikes in your dating profile” and don’t know how to react completely. And when your immune system finds that the date is something wrong, it turns out to be really bad, it starts firing in random directions.

In contrast, the flu virus resembles its classic bully. Your immune system may have seen such a bully before, especially if the vaccine gave a preview of the bully. If your immune system has seen this flu virus before, it will have a better sense of how it reacts.

Therefore, not only are the Covid-19 coronavirus and the influenza virus two completely different viruses, but their experience with them in the immune system can also be very different. Therefore, the damage directly caused by the virus and the reaction of the immune system to them can be very different.

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With this background in mind, there are several ways to distinguish infections.

1. Covid-19 symptoms tend to take a long time to appear after infection.

Symptoms of Covid-19 can develop 2 to 14 days after the initial infection, but on average it takes about 5 days. On the other hand, the symptoms of influenza tend to develop a little earlier, 1 to 4 days after infection.

2. Covid-19 symptoms tend to appear more gradually.

The flu can hit you like a ton of bricks. Singing Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” and watching Latkes heat up with microwaves makes me feel better at work every day. Suddenly, you feel sick and have symptoms such as fever, chills, muscle aches, and headaches. Malaise.

Covid-19 can be quite different when symptoms occur. At first there may be bricks here and there, but some of them feel like cement, while others feel like Latkes. Symptoms appear gradually and may be mild at first.But after the first week, like a movie Dark phoenix And Lucy, Things can go from not so big to much worse.

3. The course of Covid-19 is more unpredictable.

In the case of influenza, symptoms tend to follow a more typical trajectory. Early on, you will feel like a do-do, right after the onset of symptoms. When things go downhill, they usually do so in this early period. Otherwise, the symptoms may improve over time. Of course, there are exceptions, and the situation can be different if you subsequently get infected with something else.

On the other hand, Covid-19 courses are everywhere. The first week feels pretty okay and the second week is downhill. Your symptoms can change from day to day, or even seemingly hourly. It’s much harder to predict what will happen.

4. Covid-19 can cause loss of taste and odor.

Both flu and Covid-19 can cause fever, malaise, cough, sore throat, runny nose, shortness of breath, body aches, headaches, vomiting, or diarrhea. However, if you notice a loss of taste, it is not common in the flu. In this case, loss of taste does not mean wearing a velor track suit or plating all walls and furniture with fake gold. That means you can’t feel different tastes in your mouth. Loss of odor is another possible Covid-19 symptom.As Late show with Stephen Colbert As the segment showed, such a symptom was that actor Hugh Grant wanted to sniff people’s armpits.

Assuming this isn’t usually yours, the flu probably won’t let you smell people’s armpits.

5. Covid-19 may exhibit a wider range of abnormal symptoms.

As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows, Covid-19 and flu can cause fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath, shortness of breath, malaise, sore throat, runny nose or stuffy nose, muscle aches, body aches, headaches, vomiting, or diarrhea there is.

However, eye problems, skin rashes, and erections that last for more than 4 hours are just a few of the usual symptoms reported in Covid-19. Doctors are still trying to figure out all the problems that Covid-19 can cause. Sure, if your erection lasts for more than 4 hours, you can’t just say, “Oh, I have the flu again.” Similarly, if you have abnormal or unexpected symptoms in addition to the more common symptoms such as fever, cough, and diarrhea, you should consider Covid-19 as a possibility.

6. Covid-19 is more likely to cause serious problems, including long-term problems.

Covid-19 has a much higher risk of death than influenza and appears to be more likely to persist. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “80% of infections are mild or asymptomatic, 15% are severe infections and require oxygen, 5% are serious infections and require ventilation. Severe and severe. These rates of infection are higher than those observed with influenza infection. “

WHO also said, “COVID-19 mortality seems to be higher than influenza, especially seasonal flu. The true mortality rate of COVID-19 takes some time to fully understand, but so far. According to the data, the crude mortality rate (reported mortality divided by the reported cases) is 3-4%, which is the mortality rate from infection. The rate (reported mortality divided by the number of infections). The mortality rate is usually well below 0.1% for seasonal flu. “

There are more and more reports of people suffering from the long Covid-19. Symptoms last for weeks and even months, well beyond the initial infection. In the next 60 Minutes Australia segment, actress Alyssa Milano describes her fight against “long-haul carrier” Covid-19.

It is not clear what percentage of Covid-19 will progress to longer Covid-19, but the longer the symptoms, the more likely you are to be infected with Covid-19 than the flu.

7. Covid-19 is more contagious than influenza.

One person infected with the virus (that is, one person, not an uninfected person) can infect one or two people with the virus on average, but Covid-19 Corona One person infected with the virus can infect two people with the virus on average, and four others. So, the more people around you who are ill, the more you need to consider the likelihood of a Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak.

It may be more difficult to distinguish between influenza and Covid-19, especially if the symptoms are mild. Ultimately, you may need a Covid-19 test to distinguish between the two. Of course, just because you have one doesn’t mean you can’t get the other at the same time. Therefore, your answer to the “flu or Covid-19?” Question could certainly be “yes”.