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by lottin 1836 days ago
Colds are pretty common, influenza not that much. In my 39 years of age I typically catch a cold almost every year, but the flu only once in my entire life.
7 comments
nl 1836 days ago
Adults catch real flu about once every five years, scientists calculate, based on a field study in China.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-31698038

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mulvya 1836 days ago
The CDC estimates around 30 million symptomatic influenza infections in a year; in recent years, more[1].

And roughly three-quarter of infections are asymptomatic[2], so ~120 million total cases annually.

[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/past-seasons.html

[2]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221326001...

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Scoundreller 1836 days ago
Flu is kinda like COVID: a significant percentage of infections are without symptoms.

Lots of estimates, I usually see it as around one-third of cases having no symptoms: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2646474/

I’ll take a slight leap and guesstimate this means a lot of flu infections are around the symptom level of a mild or bad cold as well.

When you know you have the flu, it’s probably the flu, but it’s much harder to self-determine that you don’t have the flu.

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johnwalkr 1836 days ago
I read once that many cases of the flu are really food poisoning. I got H1N1 and felt like I was dying for a week. Looking back I now think it's the only time I've ever really had the flu.
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zephyr9 1836 days ago
Correct. I'm 36 and unless it was mild or asymptomatic, I'm sure I've never had influenza.

When people exaggerate a common cold into "the flu" I respond with equal exaggeration by insisting I take them to the hospital.

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djmips 1836 days ago
Influenza can be mild, even asymptomatic, so unless you are really able to test; you probably don't have good numbers for how often you've caught the flu.
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wearywanderer 1836 days ago
Influenza is rare? Maybe rare for you if you habitually get the flu shot twice a year, but even then the efficacy of the flu shot can be as low as 50%. Influenza is very common, most people have experienced it.
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nl 1836 days ago
This is correct.

Adults catch real flu about once every five years, scientists calculate, based on a field study in China.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-31698038

on average, about 8% of the U.S. population gets sick from flu each season, with a range of between 3% and 11%, depending on the season.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/keyfacts.htm

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