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Comment by Johnny555 | Hacker News Reader

Ive had multiple terrible colds, but no flu.

How do you tell the difference between a terrible cold and flu? Doctors can't tell the difference from symptoms alone, do you have yourself tested each time you have a cold?

might have gone extinct with the lockdowns

That's not likely, and with fewer people exposed to the flu and gaining natural immunity, there may even be a big spike in flu cases if social distancing and mask wearing are relaxed next flu season.

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While you can’t perfectly reliably, a fever is a pretty good indicator; anything beyond a mild fever is very unusual for the cold, but standard for flu.

> might have gone extinct with the lockdowns

This is unlikely as humans aren’t the only hosts for influenza. Almost all can infect birds and most can infect pigs. Probably some other humans too. And jump between eachother and humans.

We might have the same issue with COVID: vaccinating all humans may not eradicate it if some animals serve as natural reservoirs (mink maybe? Ferrets?).

Perhaps horseshoe bats and/or pangolins may be animal reservoirs as well.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

I guess that's a good point, but I think of the flu as different symptoms, you are really fatigued, you have brain fog, feel a bit like you are at the brink of death, have headaches, and you're caughing, maybe with a sore throat and more difficulty breathing.

Whereas colds are more congestion with drowsiness.

But you're totally right, symptoms alone are hard to use for accurately knowing what you had, there are so many types of cold virus and bacteria out there too.

I guess for me, I had never had the symptoms I describe in the former, until a few years ago I did, which I thought of as getting the flu. Had it been early 2020, I might have wondered if it was Covid, given the description of symptoms.

Flus and colds have significant differences.

If you develop symptoms abruptly and you have a fever and/or body aches it's almost certainly the flu.

A high fever.

The difference is quite significant and a doctor should know the difference.

I was 40 the first (and only) time I caught flu. I went to the doctor. I don't go to the doctor for a bad cold.

Maybe there are light flus. I don't know - but I don't want the real thing again.

while high fever and other symptoms is a rule of thumb, there's still enough overlap between flu and cold symptoms (especially a mild flu vs a bad cold) that your doctor is not going to tell you you have one or the other without doing a flu test.

With Flu your bones or muscles ache or your belly feels like it falls off. When bad, you have all symptoms. Worse is when attracting lung inflammation, that feels as if you are constantly drowning. All of this with high fever or even worse, cold fever.

Those symptoms may or may not occur depending on the influenza strain and the individual patient. Many influenza cases are entirely asymptomatic.

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