Brits struck down by six week ‘ceaselessly flu’ as knowledgeable warns who’s most in danger
EXCLUSIVE: Brits up and down the nation have been coughing and spluttering their way through persistent doses that seem to never end – and now a top boffin explains what is actually happening
Unlucky Brits are being struck down by ‘forever flus’ that last as long as six weeks, a top boffin has warned. Catching a cold, flu, RSV and Covid in succession is not unlikely, it turns out.
Victims can be left reaching for painkillers, tissues and the GPs phone number for a month and a half, Prof Anthony Staines of Dublin City University told the Daily Star.
Kids become vectors for illnesses when schools return after the Christmas break and ‘sick season’ begins as the public health boffin warned unlucky patients can feel the affects of a bad flu for couple of weeks. He said: “Some of these viruses take longer to recover from than others. People often think that if get a flu you will be right as rain in three or four days – you won’t.
“Usually, you are very sick for five or six days and not great for another week afterwards. These things last longer than you think they will last.”
Prof Staines added: “There are a lot of circulating cold viruses all the time. You can just be plain unlucky if you have small kids and they go back to school. They often bring colds back home and you can pick it up.
“There is not so much Covid now but there is still some. There is a lot of flu and there is still some RSV around the place. All of it together, without anything exceptional happening to you, you could be sick for five or six weeks on the go.
“It can just be down to bad luck. There is nothing that says you won’t get all four.”
The public health expert warned that vaccines for Covid and the flu will prevent the worst effects but won’t stop a person from falling ill. He said: “The strain of Covid at the moment, the vaccine that we have had really doesn’t provide great protection against it.
“The flu vaccine works reasonably well but you are still talking about 50% protection. You might not get seriously ill – that’s great – but you can still be sick for a couple of days and tired worn and snuffly for a few days after that.
“If you have allergies, hay fever is not uncommon. It is mostly airborne pollens and a little bit later in the year. It would be very hard differentiate between a light cold and hay fever.”
The top boffin explained when ‘sick season’ begins and what drives the transmission of respiratory diseases. He said: “It really is the winter. It starts hitting when kids go back to school. There is another bump when they go back to school in January in most house holds.
“This is not very serious stuff for most people but it is miserable. If you look at the hospital admission figures across Europe, they are really quite substantial. There is a fair number of people quite sick with respiratory illness at any given time.
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