[klocksib]

I think part of it is the guilt of taking time off of work so everything gets dubbed "the flu" to justify it.

I've only had the flu once that I know of after an conference in Las Vegas about 12yrs ago, and it was the worst illness I've ever had. I went into work on day 1, immediately turned around went home, and nearly passed out going up the stairs. The next three days were a fugue of blinking and the shadows from the trees outside moving.

[lamontcg]

Yeah back when I first started WFH (2015-ish) I skipped the flu shot for 2-3 years due to simple laziness until I finally caught the real thing. It was 3 solid days of 103F fever which was sweating in bed, combined with all kind of mild hallucinatory effects and complete incapacity, and the week after the fever broke I had a hard time just moving my body for more than 30-60 minutes at a time before having to lie down. The hangover lasted about a month before my energy levels got back to normal ("post-viral fatigue" before that term became popular -- also there's probably a risk of persistent ME/CFS or "long influenza" post-recovery).

For anyone with unvaccinated proper influenza there should be no question of if you're going to work or not. You're not going to be capable of it. Trying to order groceries online should be highly mentally taxing.

I'd strongly recommend once someone sees a fever above 100F that they get antivirals as well and not try to suffer through it like a dumbass.

(Tangentially, compare to people who "got the worst sickness of their adult life" in late 2019 and swear they were patient zero of COVID in the US -- probably just influenza, 19/20 was a bad season before COVID hit).