So … Covid and “The Flu” … What’s the Difference?

COVID and the Flu are very similar. They are both contagious respiratory conditions, and when you get them your symptoms are very similar. Despite this, there are important differences too.

1. First of all, COVID seems to spread more easily than the flu, making it much more contagious. And, this was true for COVID Version 1.0. The new variants of COVID seem to be even more easy to contract than the original.
   1. COVID spreads faster than the flu because people with the flu experience symptoms soon after they are infected. And when you’re hacking and wheezing and groaning with body aches, you’re normally not out in a crowded public space breathing into everyone else’s air.
   2. But with COVID, it can take 5 days or more AFTER YOU’VE CONTRACTED IT, before you feel the symptoms and just stay home. During this time you’re definitely shedding the virus, but don’t even know you have it. 
2. Even worse, COVID confers additional complications that the standard seasonal flu does not. These are ugly, and can include:
   1. blood clots in the arteries of the lungs, heart, legs, or brain.
   2. it is associated with the Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in children, in which multiple organ systems of the body become infected and inflamed.
   3. and of course, most of us know that COVID can also affect our senses and cause a loss of taste and/or smell.

All in all, it seems to our advantage to take the correct measures to protect ourselves from either virus, but as you can tell this COVID virus is nothing to take lightly. 

Please be safe out there my friends!

Here’s what MAYO says:

And then here’s what the CDC says: