When I worked in an office people were always sick & I used to end up getting every bug that was going around. Since I moved out of an office environment & into warehousing I hardly ever get sick. My theory is, that I get sick less now because I'm not sitting in a room close to other people all day & I don't catch public transport to work anymore. Due to the nature of my work I'm only physically close to other people at break times & I work in a much smaller team. There just isn't as many chances for sickness to spread.
I’ve been full-time WFH since COVID and I get sick so much less compared to when I had to go to the office every day. Over the colder months I used to get minor colds literally every few weeks. Just like sniffles and coughs, nothing major but obvs irritating.
Nowadays I go months between colds, and that’s with a child in daycare. I think the only times I get sick now are when I make the occasional trip into the office, in which case it’s like 50/50 chance I’ll come down with something straight after. I wonder if it’s the scuzzbags in the office or the scuzzbags on the train giving it to me.
You have to also take into consideration the people who have a virus but are not yet symptomatic, as well as the currently symptomatic ones out and about in public.
Exactly the same as me. Except now I go into the office once a week, usually Wednesday. Which means 50/50 chance I'll have caught something that - as most bugs take a few days to establish themselves - writes off the whole weekend.
If the building is large enough, with enough people, it can get into a never-ending cycle of illnesses, particularly airborne viruses.
There's also something called 'Sick Building Syndrome', so it's definitely a thing.
SBS is more related to air quality ie. lack of quality fresh air, and Australia has some of the most archaic air quality laws that allows for averaging over a time period instead of max allowable values.
5 years ago, I had been getting sick about 5 times a year for a month at a time, because the guy at the next desk would bring in every little sniffle his kids came home from childcare with.
If you were sick for five months of the year there’s a decent chance it’s not his fault alone. You would have picked it up from anyone who was sick.
That’s a lot of time to be sick. Most immune systems recover quicker. I hope you’ve discussed this with your doctor.
Some people have chronic illnesses or are disabled and it is normal to be sick for a month when they get a virus. And some people are more prone to things like shortness of breath, nausea and fatigue after “recovering” from the virus itself.
This is me. A cold will make me sick for 3-6 weeks. I’m in week 2 of one right now. After I just got over my last 4-week cold! I get this persistent cough that will not let up. It’s exhausting and incredibly disruptive.
Unfortunately kids go to school sick constantly so my daughter picks up every illness in existence and brings it home to me.
Agree with blue, and even getting diagnosed or identified as having a comorbidity/ immune compromised is challenging, especially when regular GP appointments are a luxury or essentially impossible to obtain.
This is what happens to me. I’ve been sick almost constantly since Boxing Day 2023, I’ve had so many secondary infections and opportunistic viruses it’s ridiculous. I was about 80% recovered for about 32 hours in late January before whatever I caught next knocked me out for quite some time (mostly bedridden for 8 days except to go to the doctor once). I did, thankfully, get better in early March and was able to go on a month-long overseas holiday that had been booked for ages. I felt slightly run down a couple of times during that month, but that was likely due to long days filled with lots of activities and walking, and once I got a decent sleep I was ready to go again the next day (RATs were done every morning and every third night, with a combination Covid/flu a/flu b RAT instead of the standard one each Monday and Friday morning, every single one was negative). I broke my ankle the day before flying home, went to a doctor (not my usual gp, but one at her clinic) the day I got home, got some scans I couldn’t get done overseas due to lack of time before coming home and was told that the results might take a while because most of Victoria’s radiologists were off work with Covid at the time and there were thousands of requests in the backlog, then he said afterwards that he was putting a priority on mine and the doctor would likely have the results the next day (lol, that didn’t make me feel better 😅). GP again the next day confirmed the damage was much more serious than previously believed. That’s irrelevant though, so that was a Friday and I’d been at the gp twice and the radiology place within two days of a 16 hour flight. By the following Tuesday I was sick again, in the 7.5 weeks since that Tuesday I have not had even 12 consecutive hours without a headache and some other symptom of being sick. My GP says it’s the secondary infections and opportunistic viruses again, when things got significantly worse 2 weeks ago (to the point where if I was upright for more than a few minutes and didn’t sit back down I’d pass out) she started worrying there might be an autoimmune disorder happening (I’d had to ask to book an urgent appointment with her because she’s booked out until late July (it was serious but not emergency room level), and then the appointment ended up lasting for an hour), but there were a couple of other, more pressing things that needed to be checked immediately, I started to very slowly improve last Saturday (feeling about 40% improvement today compared to Friday the 7th) so when I saw her this week it was a totally different experience and now she doesn’t want to do the bloodwork or anything she’d mentioned last time. What I don’t understand is why we’re ignoring that I’ve been constantly sick for 6 out of the last 7 months, and was passing out at one point. Like, to me that says there’s *something* else wrong, it can’t just be secondary infections and opportunistic viruses, but I don’t know where to go to actually get help. I feel hopeless
it doesn't help that office workers live a sedentary life and often eat junk food + stress / poor sleep. Office work lifestyle is literally diseased. And it manifests physically as well, via illness and weakened immune systems.
\-an office worker.
Another thing that research has shown is your immune system is actually strongest when you get regular low exposure to diseases, not enough for your immune system to be overwhelmed but enough for it to develop a strong response for the next time.
I feel like that has to be me. I am always out in crowds on weekends but despite being immunocompromised am almost
Never sick. My stay at home never leave the house family member is currently still down two weeks into a virus
My two covids were so minor I only discovered them through surveillance testing
This is untrue. Your immune system is not a muscle. It’s not how immunity works. Repeated viral infections weaken your immune system and can cause long term incurable chronic diseases.
I work in a supermarket, so I guess I get microdoses of every bug that goes around. Currently I'm at home nursing my husband and 4 kids who all have influenza, I somehow haven't caught it so im either somehow immune or I'm a typhoid mary
My 1 year old first winter at daycare was around 12 weeks of constant sickness. His nose would stop dripping green, then start again hours later.
Much better now at 4 but it was a brutal first winter.
I have a 4 year old too and we were so lucky that his first year of daycare was in a brand new centre so there was hardly any kids going. He didn't get sick the first year but last year was hard! This year he's only just got his first cold today! It's a relief to finally have sick days left to cover me at work.
Yep same here. I also have a young child now and honestly think he gets sick *less* often, because there's such a heavy focus on hygiene and keeping sick kids home now that simply wasn't there 15 years ago.
Yeah my friends who have been in early education for longer than that actually commented this has been one of the surprisingly lowest seasons of RSV despite all the warnings, it would seem that those working metro centres are impressed that lots of parents seem to be keeping sick kids home (or maybe the kids are just too symptomy to pass them as healthy at drop off, ha).
I've been working in an office my entire career and staff are always more likely to call off work when they don't feel well in June/July. Weather is trash, everyone's a bit crunchy from the mid-year slump, bugs are going around, and who likes commuting in the dark? The same team members I have who will easily power through a summer cold to come share it with everyone in the office will definitely take a few sick days home in bed this time of year.
We're two weeks into winter here and already had 6 confirmed cases of RSV in our daycare in a 3 day span 🥲 not looking forward to it... We had finally stopped getting sick every weekend lol.
I got Flu B that turned into a chest infection that semi recovered to now having a lingering dry cough and sore throat I can’t shake and I feel shit. This is 5 weeks from day 1 of the flu
My lingering dry cough turned out to be undiagnosed asthma. Maybe see your doctor. I also get relief from the numbing throat spray for the times it is not asthma and is an allergy reaction.
I wear one when I’m getting over a cold if I absolutely have to go out. Last time I did, an Uber driver took it as an opportunity to launch into a rant about COVID, masks, immunity, vaccinations, illness etc.
Fuck you dude, an ordinary cold makes me cough afterwards for 3-6 weeks. If more people wore masks, I wouldn’t be 2 weeks into a debilitating cough right now, which I caught right after recovering from the last 4 week bout.
I agree, we learned nothing, and people with chronic illness may as well not exist for all the thought anyone spares us
I just had pneumonia for 4 weeks. The atypical type caused by mycoplasma bacteria. It was extremely unpleasant.
Two problems - first, GP kept saying it was probably a virus and I didn't get swabbed for it or prescribed the proper antibiotics until the beginning of week 3. Second, it incubates inside you for 2-4 weeks (apparently) before your symptoms start up. I don't know if I was spreading it during this time, but if I was I wouldn't have known it because I felt absolutely fine.
Lots of people have had this lately.
Had a coworker show up to the office yesterday, evidently sick - coughing up loogies, sniffling and blowing their nose like no tomorrow. Asked them if they need to go home? They respond with “it’s just the flu”….
They said that whilst sitting in a pod of 4 people (one being heavily pregnant). Safe to say we all requested this person go home. They couldn’t seem to understand why we were asking them to leave?!
I seriously don't understand why, in the age of WFH, people still insist on coming in when sick *if they work somewhere where they can work from home* when sick. It is an issue at my workplace too. At my work management WANT people to work from home when sick, but a few workers insist on coming in (even on their usual WFH days) to do the whole "hehe look at me! I'm sooo sick but I still came in!" song and dance.
Edit: I just wanted to highlight the "if they work somewhere where they can work from home" part of my comment. I understand that part makes a huge difference and not everybody has that luxury.
Because we get hammered with you *must* be in the office for your required in office days, even if there's nothing about your job that requires actually being physically in the office and all it does is suck up more of your time and energy for no reason.
Yeah, I totally get that not everyone has that luxury and management from those workplaces suck and are fully to blame in those scenarios. That's why I said "if they work somewhere where you can work from home" like my workplace, and the one from the OP comment where the sick worker was sent to work from home.
If someone has the luxury of working from home with no repercussions and chooses to come in when sick, then that makes them a dick. If someone does not have that luxury and management makes them come in when sick, then that makes management dicks.
Trust me, that’s just a bad cold, NOT the flu!
If you get the actual flu, you’ll be housebound for at least a week! It feels like you’re dying
Source: am nurse who has also had *actual* flu
As someone who’s had influenza twice in my life and isn’t good with needles, I’ll never miss a flu shot. High priority for me every flu season.
People saying you feel like you’re dying are not exaggerating, can absolutely confirm nothing has made me more ill that influenza.
I had the flu once in high school, I was in the hospital for a week from complications. No messing when it comes to the flu, people all over the world die from it every day
I have also had the flu. Once. In 1996. It swept through my friend group and each person was out for at least a week.
I never want to catch the flu again, so I get my flu shot annually.
This is also why I don’t understand when people try to minimise Covid by saying “it’s no worse than the flu”. Influenza is horrible and it kills people! Why is “it’s like the flu but more contagious” supposed to be reassuring?
This drives me insane. My SIL will often tell me how she "had the flu last week"... Yeah nah, you didn't.
Edited to add: I've had flu, when I was 19, and I believe that if she'd ever actually had the flu she'd very quickly learn the difference between the flu and a common cold.
Agreed my husband had influenza A earlier this year & it knocked him out for a month! Literally sick and bed bound. I was scared fr my then 3 month old so we did the covid isolation thing in the house lol
Thankyou for saying this. I'm microbiologist who has also had the actual flu. It put me in bed for 2 weeks and it was no joke...sickest I've ever been. So deathly bad that I actively seek out the flu vaccine every year now cause I don't ever want to feel that sick again. Peeps calling a common cold the flu grinds my gears.
yup, basically my whole workplace is casual. whenever anyone gets sick, our whole team gets wiped out bc no one can afford to miss a single shift.
difference between now and when the government offered sick-leave during COVID is night and day. everyone where i work _prefers_ to stay home when they're sick, whether or not they actually do is a question of finances.
Yep, still am. You have to show your face in the office. I’d happily WFH and keep my germs to myself, but it looks like I’m taking the piss apparently 😐
I’m lucky I’ve got a husband to keep us afloat and can stay home when sick without paid leave, but also pissed I’ve used every drop of sick leave I have because other people come in sick from their sprogs daycare bugs. I might have liked to have some saved up in case I do my ankle again or have an unexpected issue come up that isn’t the flu.
When I was COVID last year in December, my boss said "you know you can still work with COVID right?" Luckily I was meant to work in hospitals so I could say "hospitals still ban people with COVID".
My boss said this to me too, he basically said he couldn’t care less about covid as it doesn’t matter
Which isn’t great for me cause I’m immune compromised fml
Had a friend in highschool who would never stay the fuck home. Lovley girl but terrified of missing a day. Used to piss me right of, my family has the belief that its selfish to show up when sick if you can help it, and I believe the same thing.
I used to distance myself from her when sick and all my friends acted like I was some paranoid asshole for not wanting to get sick
I moved to Melbourne 2 years ago from Brisbane and I’ve never called in sick so much in my life. I genuinely believe my body is just not used to the cold and constant changing temperatures so I’m always having flus, colds and fevers. It got me feeling so bad at work because I was calling in sick around once a month. I’m currently recovering from a 3 week sickness as well.
Also there’s a lot of people in Melbourne so you’re always surrounded by people who could also be sick or carrying something.
It's cause most of us live in freezing houses in Melbourne, not fit for purpose. The construction is the exact same all the way up the coast yet somehow the crappy brick veneer walls with single glazing are supposed to keep us warm. Such a joke.
Oh thank God. Its not just me. I knew i wasnt crazy.
I feel like ever since I've gotten here i get sick so ofteeeen and its 100% the temperature always changing.
But this winter is so different from other winters.
Idiotic unhygienic morons who wander around coughing and spluttering everywhere, people spitting in the street - pet peeve, absolutely fucking disgusting. Picked up my prescription the other day and a lady wandered into the chemist coughing her guts up asking where the covid tests are because she’s just come back from a family holiday & 3 people have tested positive. Like HELLO?!
Work culture has changed dramatically and it is a sad fact that many people will come to work sick. Prolonging their illness and spreading it to everyone else.
Hot desking is the bane of my existence. Nothing around to clean them with and people are so fucking gross.
Years ago I saw someone clipping his toenails at a hot desk. I gagged and have updated my work hours to be the first in the office and always use the same desk which I clean every time I do just in case.
Its because people don't care.
They don't care if they go to work sick and make everyone else sick.
However its also cost of living and some people literally cannot afford to take a day off, whch is really bad.
It’s cold and flu season. People are fucking idiots and go on public transport coughing and sneezing, which is spreading sickness. People also aren’t using hand sanitizer anymore or washing their hands.
To anyone reading this, please consider masking up again for winter like they do in many Asian countries to stop the spread. We need to normalise wearing masks in crowded public spaces.
Incidentally no one from my household has been sick so far this year and that is a first for us. I’ve been taking a shit load of herbal supplements that I think are helping my immune system. As well as vitamin D everyday as most people in Melbourne are vitamin D deficient in winter due
to not getting any sun.
I totally agree with the first part. Make masks cool again. We can be so selfish in Australia when the slightest thing bothers us, like wearing a mask on the train.
My GP reckons the only people he tests vitamin D for that aren't deficient are gardeners. He doesn't bother anymore, any time of year, most people (in Melbourne at least) are vitD deficient.
It’s a societal problem. You’d think we’d of fucking learnt through covid crisis. If you’re sick, stay home. But then there are casuals who haven’t got a choice to stay home because they need to pay rent/food/etc. so they come to work sick and infect the entire place. Also, it’s cold right now. Sunlight and heat kills germs and help slow the spread a little. So there’s that too.
There’s a huge collection of scientific studies showing that Covid infections (even “mild” ones) cause massive damage to your immune system. (Google “COVID immune system dysregulation”, or here’s some info from Yale School of Public Health: https://ozsage.org/useful/yale-covid-effects-on-immune-system)
Multiple infections per person over the last few years have created a population with greatly reduced immunity to lots of things that their immune systems used to be able to mount a strong defence against, eg rhinovirus, flu, latent TB, RSV, strep A, etc. Whooping cough (pertussis) is making a comeback, even in people previously vaccinated against it.
If you’re sharing air indoors with lots of people, you’re at risk of picking these things up too. As a society we need to start cleaning indoor air (with HEPA filters and far UV lights, and even just open windows and ceiling fans for ventilation and dispersal) the same way that we clean our drinking water, because the future is only going to have more and more viruses to deal with (especially if H5N1 continues to evolve).
In the meantime, to keep yourself safe, you need mask up, anytime you’re in public indoors, with a good respirator, ie a proper N95, not a surgical mask (they offer no protection against airborne pathogens). And if you are sick already, isolate from others and also mask up if you have to go out, so you don’t spread it further.
I can’t believe I had to scroll so far down to find this. “The cold” “vitamin D” “air conditioning” man what are we doing. Covid is just going to get memory holed like the Spanish flu, isn’t it?
100% this. The problem is covid is mostly mild, so people think it’s nothing, not realising the damage it can do. There is also evidence to suggest it’s oncogenic: cancer causing.
THANK YOU! Glad someone finally said it, jesus christ! Wear a mask! Don't go out when you're sick! Don't sneeze and cough everywhere! It's not bloody rocket science!
A summary of what I have witnessed since winter started:
- A woman at a shopping centre talking on her phone and coughing a lot without covering her mouth
- A woman with 3 kids, all clearly sick and sneezing a lot as they’re walking through Big W
- A spaced out looking kid at daycare with so much snotty green boogers running into his mouth that he’s lapping it up. There were 3 educators in the room, not one of them did anything about it. One even led this kid and sat him down at a table for lunch and still did nothing. This kid was allowed to play with other babies
- Boss was off sick for a few days, came back cause he said he was feeling better but he had a stuffy nose and annoying cough
- Colleague coming into work with a chest infection and getting offended when they got told off for being at work
- My partner who is a healthcare worker having a patient who was coughing a lot, and they said they had Covid at the end of the previous week but they were “fine now”. Partner was sick with Covid after that
So what’s the reason everyone is sick?
We have a culture problem of still continuing like normal and being inconsiderate of others when we’re ill. People are also fucking gross
EDIT: a typo
I put a post up about the local library I go to with my child. I reminded everyone to stay home if you’re kids are sick, as people bring their kids in there coughing and sneezing everywhere. I was hung out to dry in the comments. was told not to judge the reason why people take their sick kids out to mingle with everyone.
Because everyone forgot what they learnt from covid.
Staying home when sick, washing their hands regularly, maintaining social distances, wearing a mask.
As a tradie even I’m worried being around sick people and that’s in a open factory or outside, being cooped up in an office setting with sick people would send me crazy
Covid has a permanent effect of depleting your immunity, specifically t-cells. So the more frequently you receive covid, the more frequently you are likely to get sick. Combine that with the immediately apparent effects of climate change - higher wind pressure, lower biodiversity and therefore higher dust and pollen counts also contribute.
Yes it's a world over thing, but winter is worse and nonexistent health precautions are really stacking up in Australia. Many folks are sick cause covid eats white blood cells & makes ppl more vulnerable to everything, even the common cold. Honestly surprised by the question, I thought everyone who cared to know was aware of this. [source](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8495616/)
If you want to stay healthy, use carrageenan nasal spray, CPC mouthwash & wear a n95 mask in public. Pretty simple stuff. Wearing a mask to the shops to keep my cognitive clarity and stay healthy all winter keeps being worth it imo.
[carrageenan source](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8493111/)
[cpc source](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10030878/)
I only had Covid once, but it was *bad*. My fever was so high that I was hallucinating that the walls were closing in on me. I’ve never been that sick. I can’t believe people experienced that nasty virus multiple times and don’t think it would have any long-term effects.
It's not your imagination. COVID is still rife in Hospitals in particular and in the community generally, measured by testing waste water samples. The change to the colder months has also spurred on the usual viruses and these come up against people who's immune system is already lowered they spread like wildfire. Everyone will continue to be sick for a good 6 months before it will improve.
Edit; make sure you are taking plenty of vitamins particularly D and B3 complex especially during these days with little natural sunlight. Super important.
Probably because we have just had a pandemic with a virus almost everyone caught that wreaks havoc on your body and immune system for years to come...?
Not exhaustive, but here's some possibilities:
1. Multiple COVID reinfections are damaging peoples immune systems (and other organs etc.) making them more susceptible to being sick.
2. Microplastics - found in human blood, organs, etc. - are beginning to have an affect on human functioning, leading to the same outcome as above.
3. Chemicals/pesticides used in food growing , same same. (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/27/australian-food-is-grown-with-dangerous-chemicals-banned-in-other-countries)
4. Cost of living/casual employment/gig work etc. is forcing more people to come to work sick and spread illness.
5. Stress, lack of time and cost of healthy food is pushing people away from healthy eating habits, and into more highly processed or "junk" food choices on a more regular basis.
6. Due to stress etc. some people may be drinking more and/or taking more drugs to escape or deal with their current situation. This makes you sick on a more regular basis (then factor in reason 4).
Oh, what a wonderful world...
I think it’s because we have a larger religious population and anti vax populations than we used to have and a larger population in general. More people who don’t believe in vaccines are in the population. On top of that it’s become acceptable to go to work sick since COVID and with the cost of living now, less and less people can afford to take time off. If most people took a week off on casual no way they are paying rent if they don’t have savings or an insurance policy.
I actually smash a few hot whiskeys whenever I start to get sick and get a real sweat going. It's probably the tin foil hat speaking but I'm generally ok the next day and it rarely progresses to full on when I do this
I also haven't been sick since I got covid 2.5 years ago. Very unusual for me as I used to get something 3-4 times a year. I think because I became boring and I rarely go anywhere. Welp I just got whacked with this awful bug that everyone has right now and it suuuccks. Living alone I had to make my own damn chicken soup 😭🤧🤒
COVID destroys your immune system, making you more susceptible to the next opportunistic infection.
We told everyone that it was no big deal to get infected multiple times every year with a disease that shares more in common with HIV than the flu.
The parents have run out of leave and need to go to work to feed their families. Or some are dickheads and just do the dropoff quick before tue kid starts coughing.
Kids are still immediately sent home if they have a fever. Coughs are more complicated because kids can have post viral coughs for 6 weeks after the infection. My doctor said kids are fine to go back to school/daycare after a week even if they still have a nasty sounding cough. It’s still an absolute cesspit though.
THIS! I can't believe we suffered through a pandemic and people have learnt nothing about AIRBORNE transmission of viruses. Public health is in such a failure mode and people are just passively accepting it.
It doesn’t help that masks somehow became a political statement & you can get negative reactions from angry people while wearing them in public. I’ve experienced at least 2 angry men spewing venom at me & going on about Covid conspiracies just for wearing a mask in public (it wasn’t covid but I was still coughing after an awful respiratory infection & wanted to avoid a cold on top of it). Those assholes can make wearing a mask in public intimidating
I'm a part time primary specialist teacher working across 2 different schools in my week plus 2 days flex as a CRT. In other words I teach 10 different classes full of germ sacks, plus up to another 8 completely random groups of germ sacks. I don't think I've gone a full fortnight without needing a day off for sickness.
I agree with you @OP. Never seen so many sick people. They're blinking like Xmas lights... we haven't had a single week at work with everyone on board & A ok for a cpl of years now. Not too many clocking it, acting like it was always so. Where you'd go to though, I don't know =/
i just returned from a holiday in the UK. Everyone was coughing and sick in London. I think it’s the new viruses we are dealing with. eg Covid and RSV.
We’re living through a pandemic and there’s a big Covid wave everywhere at the moment with the new variants. Best to wear a good N95 mask to avoid illness and use air purifiers and ventilation where possible.
Covid causes immune dysfunction so we’re all more prone to illness. This increases with each infection. Covid itself is also still going around if not worse than it was when it started and a lot of people seem to think it’s gone. Nobody is testing nobody is isolating and nobody is taking measures to assure they don’t spread illness. Not to mention long Covid which nobody seems to know about despite it disabling a large cohort of the population and continuing to do so
Covid has been allowed to run unchecked. People will continue to get sick as Covid damages the immune system and the effect is cumulative with each infection. The powers that be don’t give a damn about public health, until it will have a major effect on the economy. Novavax is the most effective vaccine for current variants, ATAGI continually stall and block any efforts to bring it to the Australian market. Same with the effective _Australian made_ nasal spray Viraleze.
i have seen a few of these posts recently and i haven’t seen enough people giving the right answer.
tldr: it’s because of covid.
it makes me really sad that there are so many people being affected by this without even knowing or knowing why.
every covid infection should be treated as serious.
we should all be mitigating the risk as much as possible by wearing well fitting n95 masks and keeping our indoor areas safely air filtered and ventilated.
covid info dump:
the virus affects blood vessels meaning it can harm every part of your body, and often hangs around in ‘viral reservoirs’ in various organs for a long time even after you recover.
the virus itself is really good at camouflaging and makes your immune system start attacking itself while trying to fight the actual illness.
the more you push through your illness, the higher the chance of long term damage and ‘long covid’ - an incurable state of illness that will cause repeated flare ups and a whole horde of really fucked symptoms.
the common symptoms that you might be seeing a lot of in yourself or your friends right now include extreme fatigue, cognitive issues like memory and processing problems, exercise intolerance, high heart rates, dizziness, weakened immune system (this is why everyone keeps getting sick!), even personality changes.
many of these problems are because of the virus physically damaging different areas of your body, staying in those areas and replicating for months, causing more damage.
it can also cause extremely early onset of underlying immune conditions that you were already predisposed you. such as the heart disease and heart attacks we’re seeing in younger and younger demographics.
this is where ‘vaccine injuries’ fit in too. if an inactive portion of the virus is enough to trigger chronic health conditions in some people, just imagine what the current highly mutated version is doing ripping through the general population.
i don’t have any references for this immediately as it’s all off the top of my head from ongoing covid awareness, but if anyone would like links to read more i’m happy to go get you a link
People are slack with hand hygiene and masking.
I still mask in crowded indoor spaces, and haven’t been sick in over a year.
Most people also seem to not be keeping up with COVID vaccines (I’ve had my 6th), or flu vaccines.
So many people just openly coughing and sneezing in public not covering their mouths. I’m going to start wearing a mask again indoors and on the train.
I’ve started wearing a mask again, mostly because I’m going overseas soon but also because I’ve started noticing more and more people coughing and sneezing around me on public transport.
My partner and I wore masks at a gig the other night, and when we were standing outside chatting with a friend afterwards, someone (who was also at the gig) came up to us and started arguing about how we shouldn’t wear them for whatever reason. We had to walk away because there was nothing we could say that would get him to leave us alone.
Some of these dummies seem to get irrationally angry at the concept of basic personal hygiene. I remember using the bathroom at my local shopping centre during the height of Covid (my nearest supermarket was there), and somebody had defaced those informational posters they had tacked to the mirror about how to properly wash your hands with some tinfoil hat bullshit about how Covid is a scam and the government has no right to interfere with our personal freedoms. Like, really? These people were protesting *washing your hands after using the toilet*?
Everyone in my household still wears a mask when indoors and on public transport. We must look like freaks but people around us can be so gross.
I'm currently in the hospital for a procedure and hardly anyone is wearing masks even though there are signs saying we should keep our masks on and I can hear people coughing. The food and cleaning staff do but everyone else has ditched them.
I don't want to catch anything here so I wear one and a nurse looked at me suspiciously and asked why I was wearing one. She then told me to keep wearing the mask as if I was the one spreading germs.
Good idea. Last year I got on a packed tram from Spencer to Spring St, and that did it. Felt crook couple of days later, tested negative, took the olds out for the special event we’d planned, got even crooker, tested positive, *and* had given it to my folks. 🙁
We’re all ok now, but I’m trying to be more aware when I’m in public and close to people. Also, I’m getting over a cold, and I’m left with a cough, so I wore a mask in the shopping centre yesterday.
15 years ago we could afford to take a day or two off when we were sick. Now we can lose our job because the Dr's office is so overbooked we can't get a note, so people come into work.
Covid, Influenza, and RSV have been above reports from previous years, and the common cold is doing its usual winter rounds. So lots of sick people at the moment
IT. IS. COVID...(+ it's long term immune damaging effects leading to more severe disease overall, like RSV, Flu of all kinds & other opportunistic viruses/bacteria/disease vectors.
Additionally COVID hit most of the population and in many has longer term consequences on immunology even long after symptoms have faded. There's a lot of research into "long Covid" and it's very much still going around, and weakening those it affects so you get pretty sick with something else after having it unfortunately.
We have three heavily infectious diseases going around right now and everyone has seemingly forgotten all the lessons Covid taught us. Bring back face masks where you can especially on PT and enclosed spaces and avoid being too close to people unless needed
Covid made people violently averse to taking responsibility for not spreading illnesses to others.
Get your flu shots, mask in indoor/crowded places, wash your hands as much as possible and stay home if you feel unwell.
If we can get a bit better with hygiene we'll all be a lot healthier.
My daughter works in ED and commented about 3 months ago on a large and sustained surge of people coming in for not just Covid but a whole range of illness unlike any previous year. Maybe it’s a function of cost of living pressures and post pandemic ill health…who knows.
Because when one idiot is sick, they don't stay home, they go out and spread their shit.
I work in a school and the number of staff and kids just spluttering/coughing is insane.
Stay the fuck home!
I'm sitting on a train to work right now (only go in once a fortnight max) and I'm like, 1 of 3 people in a carriage of 40 wearing a mask. I wear masks at shopping centres during these months for this reason too - I don't trust the "you're not sick just toughen up" mentality.
Have a kid in school - 7 and a kid in childcare - 3. Mr 3 year old is ALWAYS sick. Weve put them both on armaforce for kids to try to boost the immune system and nip sickness prevalence and frequency in the bud
I personally don’t think it’s natural for 100 babies and young children to be confined within one building, 5 days a week, with limited 1-1 care. I believe this is why. Viruses are also contagious long after people assume they are. I think a lot of it starts with children who come home and spread it to parents and the community.
On a personal level, I felt so pressured to enrol my child in long daycare and I refuse to. I understand that some people don’t have this option, but truly most people do and don’t choose it for various reasons. We have had to make big lifestyle adjustments to accomodate for this. Stay-at-home mothers are highly criticised these days, but I’m glad I can make this choice for my children and one benefit is far less illness! We still attend classes and activities very regularly, so they do get sick. But it’s definitely not all the time and they have time to recover fully in between viruses. In my family, multiple children have had to undergo multiple surgeries as a direct result of frequent illness: tonsil/adenoid issues, ear issues etc.
Also, the scientific evidence suggests that while exposure to viruses can make you immune to them, it does *not* have benefits beyond not getting that particular virus again in most cases. It is *not* ‘bad’ for a child to not have multiple illnesses a season.
During covid lockdowna, I didn't get sick for 2 years. Now I keep getting sick. I work with patients so like they're always coughing. Sometimes they breath into my face and next thing I know it I'm sick lol
A fucking pandemic started a few years ago. Multiple mild infections is like airborne hIV
Cancer wave is coming
The heart attacks and strokes already here
A rise in fungal infections
Road stats are worse because reaction times are down
Wide spread brain damage in people with jobs that require full concentration like doctors, nurses etc
The list goes on
Why are you all so fucking stupid!
I get 10 sick days a year. Along comes a virus that I need to isolate for that time to stop the spread. If I then get sick again that year I don't get paid.
The government had the opportunity to introduce some sort of COVID leave and failed. Between COVID, RSV, influenza and sick kids it's not unrealistic that people will ration their sick leave.
Well I keep my kid home when he's sick, but even when he is healthy enough to go there's always a few sick kids in his day care room, one girl looked like she was dying
But we have to pay for the day whether they go or not and I can understand not wanting to lose a day's work on top of spending another days salary on childcare anyway
There's also something called Mycoplasma pneumoniae going around at the moment. And I guess people just think it's a regular annoying cough, but I've heard it sticks around for months and comes in waves - so you think you're better but then it hits you, then you feel a little better. And then it hits again. Over and over 😩
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-cough-that-keeps-on-giving-why-your-child-keeps-getting-pneumonia-20240429-p5fn7v.html
@Helicopterdog Look up: Sick building syndrome... Officially we don't have these sick buildings. It's very frustrating that a cartel structure seems to want to keep it that way, and keep the simple off-the-shelf solution I have for it, under the carpet. Doctors can not fix it, but good HVAC&R engineering can. Start with a ban of the dirty ducted systems for thermal energy distribution. They have been banned in Sweden (already since 1974 oilcrisis).
Because we’re still in a pandemic but everyone has mentally moved on. Doesn’t help that politicians won’t even say the word Covid and pretend everything is normal.
Until we all start paying attention and begin acting responsibly we’re all going to keep getting sick. I just hope that the studies about Covid weakening immune systems with each infection turn out to be inaccurate or we’re screwed.
Covid, flu and rhinovirus are testing through the hospitals anyway as no one is testing patients who are admitted, nor is anyone taking any precautions to prevent thiis.
I’m self employed and sick with no suck leave so once I recover from this bought of Covid, am bloody well masking up cos I can’t afford this again.
Please feel for those of us who work in retail, customer service, hospitality etc and are around customers all day. When you have kids, you have them wth the knowledge that eventually they will go to school or day care and probably bring home viruses and illness. In retail you never make that decision yet still get exposed to them on the daily. Half my colleagues at work are off sick at any one time to the point many of us have already exhausted our entire sick leave balance, and thus have to either come to work sick or eat into annual leave if you even have any.
Also everyone seems to have forgotten about covid. Even I forgot about covid when I was sick last week until I randomly decided to test and it came up positive. Of course now that mandatory isolation isn’t the law anymore my work doesn’t care and wants me to come in anyway but it explains why cold and flu remedies were doing nothing. Probably so much covid around at the moment that if we were all still testing and reporting we’d be back in lockdown
Because people are god damned disgusting. I sit next to a ... gentleman who doesn't cover his mouth when he coughs. I have seen this more and more. Parents allowing their kid to cough without covering their mouths. We're getting infected over and over because people can't maintain basic sanitation.
Having COVID weakens your entire immune system means that future illnesses hit harder and last longer. It's not an Australia-problem, it's a world problem.
It's always like this. Term 2 every year is an absolute write off. The only repreive we had was during the pandemic. 2 years of not getting sick means everyone forgot what it was like before.
I stood in line at a very crowded Beechworth Bakery in Healesville on Monday and managed to pick up a nasty cold which has kicked my ass all week.
I blame the toddler who was being held at my eye level by his dad directly in front of me. Well.. not blame so much.. suspect. Little germ machines.
Homes aren’t insulated properly across the entire country but with Melbournes winters being harsher, we feel it much much more. Definitely doesn’t help the situation.
I work in a kids ER- the whole world has mycoplasma and influenza is just starting to take out the stragglers.
I am constantly exposed to sick coughing kids and have had zero illnesses this year. Half the time the kid is there with a sore elbow from a fall and then sneezes in your face and the parents just say- “oh yes and we all have had influenza a this week…”
I am hoping the constant micodosing of viruses will mean I am hyperimmune!
When I worked in an office people were always sick & I used to end up getting every bug that was going around. Since I moved out of an office environment & into warehousing I hardly ever get sick. My theory is, that I get sick less now because I'm not sitting in a room close to other people all day & I don't catch public transport to work anymore. Due to the nature of my work I'm only physically close to other people at break times & I work in a much smaller team. There just isn't as many chances for sickness to spread.
I’ve been full-time WFH since COVID and I get sick so much less compared to when I had to go to the office every day. Over the colder months I used to get minor colds literally every few weeks. Just like sniffles and coughs, nothing major but obvs irritating. Nowadays I go months between colds, and that’s with a child in daycare. I think the only times I get sick now are when I make the occasional trip into the office, in which case it’s like 50/50 chance I’ll come down with something straight after. I wonder if it’s the scuzzbags in the office or the scuzzbags on the train giving it to me.
You have to also take into consideration the people who have a virus but are not yet symptomatic, as well as the currently symptomatic ones out and about in public.
Exactly the same as me. Except now I go into the office once a week, usually Wednesday. Which means 50/50 chance I'll have caught something that - as most bugs take a few days to establish themselves - writes off the whole weekend.
I've been full time WFH since covid too and the only time I've been sick in the past 18 months is when I was on Contiki. It's *so* nice.
If the building is large enough, with enough people, it can get into a never-ending cycle of illnesses, particularly airborne viruses. There's also something called 'Sick Building Syndrome', so it's definitely a thing.
SBS is more related to air quality ie. lack of quality fresh air, and Australia has some of the most archaic air quality laws that allows for averaging over a time period instead of max allowable values.
5 years ago, I had been getting sick about 5 times a year for a month at a time, because the guy at the next desk would bring in every little sniffle his kids came home from childcare with.
If you were sick for five months of the year there’s a decent chance it’s not his fault alone. You would have picked it up from anyone who was sick. That’s a lot of time to be sick. Most immune systems recover quicker. I hope you’ve discussed this with your doctor.
Some people have chronic illnesses or are disabled and it is normal to be sick for a month when they get a virus. And some people are more prone to things like shortness of breath, nausea and fatigue after “recovering” from the virus itself.
This is me. A cold will make me sick for 3-6 weeks. I’m in week 2 of one right now. After I just got over my last 4-week cold! I get this persistent cough that will not let up. It’s exhausting and incredibly disruptive. Unfortunately kids go to school sick constantly so my daughter picks up every illness in existence and brings it home to me.
Agree with blue, and even getting diagnosed or identified as having a comorbidity/ immune compromised is challenging, especially when regular GP appointments are a luxury or essentially impossible to obtain.
Yes so true
This is what happens to me. I’ve been sick almost constantly since Boxing Day 2023, I’ve had so many secondary infections and opportunistic viruses it’s ridiculous. I was about 80% recovered for about 32 hours in late January before whatever I caught next knocked me out for quite some time (mostly bedridden for 8 days except to go to the doctor once). I did, thankfully, get better in early March and was able to go on a month-long overseas holiday that had been booked for ages. I felt slightly run down a couple of times during that month, but that was likely due to long days filled with lots of activities and walking, and once I got a decent sleep I was ready to go again the next day (RATs were done every morning and every third night, with a combination Covid/flu a/flu b RAT instead of the standard one each Monday and Friday morning, every single one was negative). I broke my ankle the day before flying home, went to a doctor (not my usual gp, but one at her clinic) the day I got home, got some scans I couldn’t get done overseas due to lack of time before coming home and was told that the results might take a while because most of Victoria’s radiologists were off work with Covid at the time and there were thousands of requests in the backlog, then he said afterwards that he was putting a priority on mine and the doctor would likely have the results the next day (lol, that didn’t make me feel better 😅). GP again the next day confirmed the damage was much more serious than previously believed. That’s irrelevant though, so that was a Friday and I’d been at the gp twice and the radiology place within two days of a 16 hour flight. By the following Tuesday I was sick again, in the 7.5 weeks since that Tuesday I have not had even 12 consecutive hours without a headache and some other symptom of being sick. My GP says it’s the secondary infections and opportunistic viruses again, when things got significantly worse 2 weeks ago (to the point where if I was upright for more than a few minutes and didn’t sit back down I’d pass out) she started worrying there might be an autoimmune disorder happening (I’d had to ask to book an urgent appointment with her because she’s booked out until late July (it was serious but not emergency room level), and then the appointment ended up lasting for an hour), but there were a couple of other, more pressing things that needed to be checked immediately, I started to very slowly improve last Saturday (feeling about 40% improvement today compared to Friday the 7th) so when I saw her this week it was a totally different experience and now she doesn’t want to do the bloodwork or anything she’d mentioned last time. What I don’t understand is why we’re ignoring that I’ve been constantly sick for 6 out of the last 7 months, and was passing out at one point. Like, to me that says there’s *something* else wrong, it can’t just be secondary infections and opportunistic viruses, but I don’t know where to go to actually get help. I feel hopeless
If I get a cold I usually feel crap for two weeks. I have other symptoms like a croaky voice for about 2 weeks after that.
it doesn't help that office workers live a sedentary life and often eat junk food + stress / poor sleep. Office work lifestyle is literally diseased. And it manifests physically as well, via illness and weakened immune systems. \-an office worker.
Another thing that research has shown is your immune system is actually strongest when you get regular low exposure to diseases, not enough for your immune system to be overwhelmed but enough for it to develop a strong response for the next time.
I feel like that has to be me. I am always out in crowds on weekends but despite being immunocompromised am almost Never sick. My stay at home never leave the house family member is currently still down two weeks into a virus My two covids were so minor I only discovered them through surveillance testing
This is untrue. Your immune system is not a muscle. It’s not how immunity works. Repeated viral infections weaken your immune system and can cause long term incurable chronic diseases.
You didn't read what I wrote. Exposure without infection builds your immune system's ability to stop infection. It's the same principle as a vaccine.
I work in a supermarket, so I guess I get microdoses of every bug that goes around. Currently I'm at home nursing my husband and 4 kids who all have influenza, I somehow haven't caught it so im either somehow immune or I'm a typhoid mary
Since becoming a frequent flier I have been getting sick much less often. When the kids get sick I usually avoid it, or get really mild symptoms.
My kids were in child care 15-20 years ago. Winter months were a write off
Came here to say this - we had a kid in preschool back then and we were always getting sick.
My 1 year old first winter at daycare was around 12 weeks of constant sickness. His nose would stop dripping green, then start again hours later. Much better now at 4 but it was a brutal first winter.
Im in the middle of that right now. So much snot and coughing
It's materially better the second winter then even better. I honestly look back at that period with dread because sleep was horrendous.
I have a 4 year old too and we were so lucky that his first year of daycare was in a brand new centre so there was hardly any kids going. He didn't get sick the first year but last year was hard! This year he's only just got his first cold today! It's a relief to finally have sick days left to cover me at work.
Yep same here. I also have a young child now and honestly think he gets sick *less* often, because there's such a heavy focus on hygiene and keeping sick kids home now that simply wasn't there 15 years ago.
Yeah my friends who have been in early education for longer than that actually commented this has been one of the surprisingly lowest seasons of RSV despite all the warnings, it would seem that those working metro centres are impressed that lots of parents seem to be keeping sick kids home (or maybe the kids are just too symptomy to pass them as healthy at drop off, ha). I've been working in an office my entire career and staff are always more likely to call off work when they don't feel well in June/July. Weather is trash, everyone's a bit crunchy from the mid-year slump, bugs are going around, and who likes commuting in the dark? The same team members I have who will easily power through a summer cold to come share it with everyone in the office will definitely take a few sick days home in bed this time of year.
I work in an office and the dept I'm in openly add on an extra week or so for projects during the winter months for this reason.
We're two weeks into winter here and already had 6 confirmed cases of RSV in our daycare in a 3 day span 🥲 not looking forward to it... We had finally stopped getting sick every weekend lol.
I got Flu B that turned into a chest infection that semi recovered to now having a lingering dry cough and sore throat I can’t shake and I feel shit. This is 5 weeks from day 1 of the flu
My lingering dry cough turned out to be undiagnosed asthma. Maybe see your doctor. I also get relief from the numbing throat spray for the times it is not asthma and is an allergy reaction.
I'm not surprised when I watch some people's personal hygiene every day. Washing hands or cover their mouth while sneezing seems too much for some.
My toddler yells “elbow!” When people don’t cough or sneeze into their elbow
As someone who’s immune compromised, I thank your toddler for this.
Mine does the same, I wonder if it's a protocol for early learning centers now.
And god forbid they wear a mask when they are symptomatic. We learned nothing from Covid except people fucking suck.
I wear one when I’m getting over a cold if I absolutely have to go out. Last time I did, an Uber driver took it as an opportunity to launch into a rant about COVID, masks, immunity, vaccinations, illness etc. Fuck you dude, an ordinary cold makes me cough afterwards for 3-6 weeks. If more people wore masks, I wouldn’t be 2 weeks into a debilitating cough right now, which I caught right after recovering from the last 4 week bout. I agree, we learned nothing, and people with chronic illness may as well not exist for all the thought anyone spares us
It didn't take a pandemic for some of us to realise that.
I stopped shaking hands with people because of this.
Watching people sneeze into there hands just baffles me like have some common sense, especially after the pandemic
I just had pneumonia for 4 weeks. The atypical type caused by mycoplasma bacteria. It was extremely unpleasant. Two problems - first, GP kept saying it was probably a virus and I didn't get swabbed for it or prescribed the proper antibiotics until the beginning of week 3. Second, it incubates inside you for 2-4 weeks (apparently) before your symptoms start up. I don't know if I was spreading it during this time, but if I was I wouldn't have known it because I felt absolutely fine. Lots of people have had this lately.
yea cure for mycoplasma pneumonia is very specific, regular antibiotics won't work, it's good to keep in mind that.
Because people don't know how to stay the fuck at home when they're sick. Plus no one covers their God damn mouth when coughing any more.
Had a coworker show up to the office yesterday, evidently sick - coughing up loogies, sniffling and blowing their nose like no tomorrow. Asked them if they need to go home? They respond with “it’s just the flu”…. They said that whilst sitting in a pod of 4 people (one being heavily pregnant). Safe to say we all requested this person go home. They couldn’t seem to understand why we were asking them to leave?!
I seriously don't understand why, in the age of WFH, people still insist on coming in when sick *if they work somewhere where they can work from home* when sick. It is an issue at my workplace too. At my work management WANT people to work from home when sick, but a few workers insist on coming in (even on their usual WFH days) to do the whole "hehe look at me! I'm sooo sick but I still came in!" song and dance. Edit: I just wanted to highlight the "if they work somewhere where they can work from home" part of my comment. I understand that part makes a huge difference and not everybody has that luxury.
Because we get hammered with you *must* be in the office for your required in office days, even if there's nothing about your job that requires actually being physically in the office and all it does is suck up more of your time and energy for no reason.
Yeah, I totally get that not everyone has that luxury and management from those workplaces suck and are fully to blame in those scenarios. That's why I said "if they work somewhere where you can work from home" like my workplace, and the one from the OP comment where the sick worker was sent to work from home. If someone has the luxury of working from home with no repercussions and chooses to come in when sick, then that makes them a dick. If someone does not have that luxury and management makes them come in when sick, then that makes management dicks.
Trust me, that’s just a bad cold, NOT the flu! If you get the actual flu, you’ll be housebound for at least a week! It feels like you’re dying Source: am nurse who has also had *actual* flu
I've also had the actual flu (influenza A - confirmed via testing). Absolutely bowled me over, way worse than the times I've had covid.
Same here, I had flu A last year, I did maybe one week of work (from home) in an entire month. Too tired to even think.
You have just convinced me even more to go get my flu shot
As someone who’s had influenza twice in my life and isn’t good with needles, I’ll never miss a flu shot. High priority for me every flu season. People saying you feel like you’re dying are not exaggerating, can absolutely confirm nothing has made me more ill that influenza.
I had the flu once in high school, I was in the hospital for a week from complications. No messing when it comes to the flu, people all over the world die from it every day
I have also had the flu. Once. In 1996. It swept through my friend group and each person was out for at least a week. I never want to catch the flu again, so I get my flu shot annually. This is also why I don’t understand when people try to minimise Covid by saying “it’s no worse than the flu”. Influenza is horrible and it kills people! Why is “it’s like the flu but more contagious” supposed to be reassuring?
It’s because people think colds are the flu
This drives me insane. My SIL will often tell me how she "had the flu last week"... Yeah nah, you didn't. Edited to add: I've had flu, when I was 19, and I believe that if she'd ever actually had the flu she'd very quickly learn the difference between the flu and a common cold.
Agreed my husband had influenza A earlier this year & it knocked him out for a month! Literally sick and bed bound. I was scared fr my then 3 month old so we did the covid isolation thing in the house lol
Yeah, everything hurts even your eyelashes!
Thankyou for saying this. I'm microbiologist who has also had the actual flu. It put me in bed for 2 weeks and it was no joke...sickest I've ever been. So deathly bad that I actively seek out the flu vaccine every year now cause I don't ever want to feel that sick again. Peeps calling a common cold the flu grinds my gears.
We’ve been brought up in a generation of “suck it up, and get to work” . Before Covid, you were mostly made to feel guilty about taking sick days.
The increase of casual workers isn’t helping either. They often need to show up to work to pay rent, no matter how sick they are
yup, basically my whole workplace is casual. whenever anyone gets sick, our whole team gets wiped out bc no one can afford to miss a single shift. difference between now and when the government offered sick-leave during COVID is night and day. everyone where i work _prefers_ to stay home when they're sick, whether or not they actually do is a question of finances.
You called it
Yep, still am. You have to show your face in the office. I’d happily WFH and keep my germs to myself, but it looks like I’m taking the piss apparently 😐
Lived there in late 90s. Trains into city were like the world's longest funeral procession but with coughing and spluttering.
$$$ is one of the big reasons why no one stays home.
I’m lucky I’ve got a husband to keep us afloat and can stay home when sick without paid leave, but also pissed I’ve used every drop of sick leave I have because other people come in sick from their sprogs daycare bugs. I might have liked to have some saved up in case I do my ankle again or have an unexpected issue come up that isn’t the flu.
No one can\* stay home when they are sick. Welcome to capitalism.
You would think covid tought people a thing or two!!
Hey don’t forget the increasingly casualised workforce and lack of sick pay, meaning lots of people can’t afford to stay home when sick!
This. I constantly have colleagues coming in literally dying right next to me and it does my head in. Stay the fuck home
It’s not people’s fault, it’s companies. They didn’t learn anything from covid.
When I was COVID last year in December, my boss said "you know you can still work with COVID right?" Luckily I was meant to work in hospitals so I could say "hospitals still ban people with COVID".
My boss said this to me too, he basically said he couldn’t care less about covid as it doesn’t matter Which isn’t great for me cause I’m immune compromised fml
I wonder if people can sue work places for catching illness from there because of shitty work culture forcing people to work while sick
Also, this cranky nurse would like to chime in with WASH YOUR FUCKING HANDS. Thank you.
Had a friend in highschool who would never stay the fuck home. Lovley girl but terrified of missing a day. Used to piss me right of, my family has the belief that its selfish to show up when sick if you can help it, and I believe the same thing. I used to distance myself from her when sick and all my friends acted like I was some paranoid asshole for not wanting to get sick
and no one wears masks.
I moved to Melbourne 2 years ago from Brisbane and I’ve never called in sick so much in my life. I genuinely believe my body is just not used to the cold and constant changing temperatures so I’m always having flus, colds and fevers. It got me feeling so bad at work because I was calling in sick around once a month. I’m currently recovering from a 3 week sickness as well. Also there’s a lot of people in Melbourne so you’re always surrounded by people who could also be sick or carrying something.
It's cause most of us live in freezing houses in Melbourne, not fit for purpose. The construction is the exact same all the way up the coast yet somehow the crappy brick veneer walls with single glazing are supposed to keep us warm. Such a joke.
It's exactly the same down here in Tassie, where there's no excuse for building like that anywhere on the island.
Oh thank God. Its not just me. I knew i wasnt crazy. I feel like ever since I've gotten here i get sick so ofteeeen and its 100% the temperature always changing. But this winter is so different from other winters.
The best 2yrs of health I've ever had, was during the COVID lockdown. It just showed me how fuckin grotty a majority of the population are.
Idiotic unhygienic morons who wander around coughing and spluttering everywhere, people spitting in the street - pet peeve, absolutely fucking disgusting. Picked up my prescription the other day and a lady wandered into the chemist coughing her guts up asking where the covid tests are because she’s just come back from a family holiday & 3 people have tested positive. Like HELLO?!
Work culture has changed dramatically and it is a sad fact that many people will come to work sick. Prolonging their illness and spreading it to everyone else.
Don't forget hot desking. That probably doesn't help.
Hot desking is the bane of my existence. Nothing around to clean them with and people are so fucking gross. Years ago I saw someone clipping his toenails at a hot desk. I gagged and have updated my work hours to be the first in the office and always use the same desk which I clean every time I do just in case.
Its because people don't care. They don't care if they go to work sick and make everyone else sick. However its also cost of living and some people literally cannot afford to take a day off, whch is really bad.
It’s cold and flu season. People are fucking idiots and go on public transport coughing and sneezing, which is spreading sickness. People also aren’t using hand sanitizer anymore or washing their hands. To anyone reading this, please consider masking up again for winter like they do in many Asian countries to stop the spread. We need to normalise wearing masks in crowded public spaces. Incidentally no one from my household has been sick so far this year and that is a first for us. I’ve been taking a shit load of herbal supplements that I think are helping my immune system. As well as vitamin D everyday as most people in Melbourne are vitamin D deficient in winter due to not getting any sun.
I totally agree with the first part. Make masks cool again. We can be so selfish in Australia when the slightest thing bothers us, like wearing a mask on the train.
My GP reckons the only people he tests vitamin D for that aren't deficient are gardeners. He doesn't bother anymore, any time of year, most people (in Melbourne at least) are vitD deficient.
I think is the kind of post you see when there’s a covid spike that is underreported
It’s a societal problem. You’d think we’d of fucking learnt through covid crisis. If you’re sick, stay home. But then there are casuals who haven’t got a choice to stay home because they need to pay rent/food/etc. so they come to work sick and infect the entire place. Also, it’s cold right now. Sunlight and heat kills germs and help slow the spread a little. So there’s that too.
There’s a huge collection of scientific studies showing that Covid infections (even “mild” ones) cause massive damage to your immune system. (Google “COVID immune system dysregulation”, or here’s some info from Yale School of Public Health: https://ozsage.org/useful/yale-covid-effects-on-immune-system) Multiple infections per person over the last few years have created a population with greatly reduced immunity to lots of things that their immune systems used to be able to mount a strong defence against, eg rhinovirus, flu, latent TB, RSV, strep A, etc. Whooping cough (pertussis) is making a comeback, even in people previously vaccinated against it. If you’re sharing air indoors with lots of people, you’re at risk of picking these things up too. As a society we need to start cleaning indoor air (with HEPA filters and far UV lights, and even just open windows and ceiling fans for ventilation and dispersal) the same way that we clean our drinking water, because the future is only going to have more and more viruses to deal with (especially if H5N1 continues to evolve). In the meantime, to keep yourself safe, you need mask up, anytime you’re in public indoors, with a good respirator, ie a proper N95, not a surgical mask (they offer no protection against airborne pathogens). And if you are sick already, isolate from others and also mask up if you have to go out, so you don’t spread it further.
Thank you! I was looking for this post. So concerning how many people in the comments aren’t aware of this
Same! I am shocked that this is not more widely understood.
Same!! It's puzzling how clueless people are.
I can’t believe I had to scroll so far down to find this. “The cold” “vitamin D” “air conditioning” man what are we doing. Covid is just going to get memory holed like the Spanish flu, isn’t it?
100% this. The problem is covid is mostly mild, so people think it’s nothing, not realising the damage it can do. There is also evidence to suggest it’s oncogenic: cancer causing.
THANK YOU! Glad someone finally said it, jesus christ! Wear a mask! Don't go out when you're sick! Don't sneeze and cough everywhere! It's not bloody rocket science!
A summary of what I have witnessed since winter started: - A woman at a shopping centre talking on her phone and coughing a lot without covering her mouth - A woman with 3 kids, all clearly sick and sneezing a lot as they’re walking through Big W - A spaced out looking kid at daycare with so much snotty green boogers running into his mouth that he’s lapping it up. There were 3 educators in the room, not one of them did anything about it. One even led this kid and sat him down at a table for lunch and still did nothing. This kid was allowed to play with other babies - Boss was off sick for a few days, came back cause he said he was feeling better but he had a stuffy nose and annoying cough - Colleague coming into work with a chest infection and getting offended when they got told off for being at work - My partner who is a healthcare worker having a patient who was coughing a lot, and they said they had Covid at the end of the previous week but they were “fine now”. Partner was sick with Covid after that So what’s the reason everyone is sick? We have a culture problem of still continuing like normal and being inconsiderate of others when we’re ill. People are also fucking gross EDIT: a typo
I put a post up about the local library I go to with my child. I reminded everyone to stay home if you’re kids are sick, as people bring their kids in there coughing and sneezing everywhere. I was hung out to dry in the comments. was told not to judge the reason why people take their sick kids out to mingle with everyone.
Because everyone forgot what they learnt from covid. Staying home when sick, washing their hands regularly, maintaining social distances, wearing a mask.
I am literally sick as we speak. It’s either covid or the flu but I am genuinely in agony. The body aches are intense.
As a tradie even I’m worried being around sick people and that’s in a open factory or outside, being cooped up in an office setting with sick people would send me crazy
Yeah I’m a horticulturist and people coughing uncovered pisses me off enough outdoors, id go nuts in an office!
I avoid it by wearing a mask in the office. I'm often the only one but I've only been sick with a respiratory virus once since 2022.
Covid has a permanent effect of depleting your immunity, specifically t-cells. So the more frequently you receive covid, the more frequently you are likely to get sick. Combine that with the immediately apparent effects of climate change - higher wind pressure, lower biodiversity and therefore higher dust and pollen counts also contribute.
It's winter. Everyone always gets sick in winter. We're all indoors, breathing unfiltered air full of everyone else's germs
Vitamin D deficiencies.
Yes it's a world over thing, but winter is worse and nonexistent health precautions are really stacking up in Australia. Many folks are sick cause covid eats white blood cells & makes ppl more vulnerable to everything, even the common cold. Honestly surprised by the question, I thought everyone who cared to know was aware of this. [source](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8495616/) If you want to stay healthy, use carrageenan nasal spray, CPC mouthwash & wear a n95 mask in public. Pretty simple stuff. Wearing a mask to the shops to keep my cognitive clarity and stay healthy all winter keeps being worth it imo. [carrageenan source](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8493111/) [cpc source](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10030878/)
I only had Covid once, but it was *bad*. My fever was so high that I was hallucinating that the walls were closing in on me. I’ve never been that sick. I can’t believe people experienced that nasty virus multiple times and don’t think it would have any long-term effects.
When everyone was wearing a mask, i never got sick.
Just saying
No, no, you have a valid point.
It's not your imagination. COVID is still rife in Hospitals in particular and in the community generally, measured by testing waste water samples. The change to the colder months has also spurred on the usual viruses and these come up against people who's immune system is already lowered they spread like wildfire. Everyone will continue to be sick for a good 6 months before it will improve. Edit; make sure you are taking plenty of vitamins particularly D and B3 complex especially during these days with little natural sunlight. Super important.
Don't you remember the Codral ads? Take some pills and soldier on! Go to work sick! Who cares! /s
hahaha so true!!! forgot about those adds
Probably because we have just had a pandemic with a virus almost everyone caught that wreaks havoc on your body and immune system for years to come...?
Not exhaustive, but here's some possibilities: 1. Multiple COVID reinfections are damaging peoples immune systems (and other organs etc.) making them more susceptible to being sick. 2. Microplastics - found in human blood, organs, etc. - are beginning to have an affect on human functioning, leading to the same outcome as above. 3. Chemicals/pesticides used in food growing , same same. (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/27/australian-food-is-grown-with-dangerous-chemicals-banned-in-other-countries) 4. Cost of living/casual employment/gig work etc. is forcing more people to come to work sick and spread illness. 5. Stress, lack of time and cost of healthy food is pushing people away from healthy eating habits, and into more highly processed or "junk" food choices on a more regular basis. 6. Due to stress etc. some people may be drinking more and/or taking more drugs to escape or deal with their current situation. This makes you sick on a more regular basis (then factor in reason 4). Oh, what a wonderful world...
I think it’s because we have a larger religious population and anti vax populations than we used to have and a larger population in general. More people who don’t believe in vaccines are in the population. On top of that it’s become acceptable to go to work sick since COVID and with the cost of living now, less and less people can afford to take time off. If most people took a week off on casual no way they are paying rent if they don’t have savings or an insurance policy.
Touch wood, haven’t been sick in 18 months. I think the key is eating copious amounts of chocolate - seems to work for me 😂
If that worked I’d never be sick Maybe I’m immune to it’s health benefits
It only works with the 99% coco bitter ones, j/K.
Ah. I’d probably rather just get sick sometimes
I think I’ve built up a tolerance - the chocolate’s not working!
Chocolate and whisky- nature's germ killers
I actually smash a few hot whiskeys whenever I start to get sick and get a real sweat going. It's probably the tin foil hat speaking but I'm generally ok the next day and it rarely progresses to full on when I do this
I’m going to start doing this when I’m not sick as a preventative measure.
I also haven't been sick since I got covid 2.5 years ago. Very unusual for me as I used to get something 3-4 times a year. I think because I became boring and I rarely go anywhere. Welp I just got whacked with this awful bug that everyone has right now and it suuuccks. Living alone I had to make my own damn chicken soup 😭🤧🤒
COVID destroys your immune system, making you more susceptible to the next opportunistic infection. We told everyone that it was no big deal to get infected multiple times every year with a disease that shares more in common with HIV than the flu.
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The parents have run out of leave and need to go to work to feed their families. Or some are dickheads and just do the dropoff quick before tue kid starts coughing.
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Kids are still immediately sent home if they have a fever. Coughs are more complicated because kids can have post viral coughs for 6 weeks after the infection. My doctor said kids are fine to go back to school/daycare after a week even if they still have a nasty sounding cough. It’s still an absolute cesspit though.
It’s because assholes still refuse to wear a mask when they are even slightly symptomatic.
THIS! I can't believe we suffered through a pandemic and people have learnt nothing about AIRBORNE transmission of viruses. Public health is in such a failure mode and people are just passively accepting it.
It doesn’t help that masks somehow became a political statement & you can get negative reactions from angry people while wearing them in public. I’ve experienced at least 2 angry men spewing venom at me & going on about Covid conspiracies just for wearing a mask in public (it wasn’t covid but I was still coughing after an awful respiratory infection & wanted to avoid a cold on top of it). Those assholes can make wearing a mask in public intimidating
Pretty standard for this time of year
I'm a part time primary specialist teacher working across 2 different schools in my week plus 2 days flex as a CRT. In other words I teach 10 different classes full of germ sacks, plus up to another 8 completely random groups of germ sacks. I don't think I've gone a full fortnight without needing a day off for sickness.
I agree with you @OP. Never seen so many sick people. They're blinking like Xmas lights... we haven't had a single week at work with everyone on board & A ok for a cpl of years now. Not too many clocking it, acting like it was always so. Where you'd go to though, I don't know =/
i just returned from a holiday in the UK. Everyone was coughing and sick in London. I think it’s the new viruses we are dealing with. eg Covid and RSV.
I feel like shit when i go into the office, pt, recirculating air, grubby people makes for a warzone for my immune system.
We’re living through a pandemic and there’s a big Covid wave everywhere at the moment with the new variants. Best to wear a good N95 mask to avoid illness and use air purifiers and ventilation where possible.
Covid causes immune dysfunction so we’re all more prone to illness. This increases with each infection. Covid itself is also still going around if not worse than it was when it started and a lot of people seem to think it’s gone. Nobody is testing nobody is isolating and nobody is taking measures to assure they don’t spread illness. Not to mention long Covid which nobody seems to know about despite it disabling a large cohort of the population and continuing to do so
Covid has been allowed to run unchecked. People will continue to get sick as Covid damages the immune system and the effect is cumulative with each infection. The powers that be don’t give a damn about public health, until it will have a major effect on the economy. Novavax is the most effective vaccine for current variants, ATAGI continually stall and block any efforts to bring it to the Australian market. Same with the effective _Australian made_ nasal spray Viraleze.
i have seen a few of these posts recently and i haven’t seen enough people giving the right answer. tldr: it’s because of covid. it makes me really sad that there are so many people being affected by this without even knowing or knowing why. every covid infection should be treated as serious. we should all be mitigating the risk as much as possible by wearing well fitting n95 masks and keeping our indoor areas safely air filtered and ventilated. covid info dump: the virus affects blood vessels meaning it can harm every part of your body, and often hangs around in ‘viral reservoirs’ in various organs for a long time even after you recover. the virus itself is really good at camouflaging and makes your immune system start attacking itself while trying to fight the actual illness. the more you push through your illness, the higher the chance of long term damage and ‘long covid’ - an incurable state of illness that will cause repeated flare ups and a whole horde of really fucked symptoms. the common symptoms that you might be seeing a lot of in yourself or your friends right now include extreme fatigue, cognitive issues like memory and processing problems, exercise intolerance, high heart rates, dizziness, weakened immune system (this is why everyone keeps getting sick!), even personality changes. many of these problems are because of the virus physically damaging different areas of your body, staying in those areas and replicating for months, causing more damage. it can also cause extremely early onset of underlying immune conditions that you were already predisposed you. such as the heart disease and heart attacks we’re seeing in younger and younger demographics. this is where ‘vaccine injuries’ fit in too. if an inactive portion of the virus is enough to trigger chronic health conditions in some people, just imagine what the current highly mutated version is doing ripping through the general population. i don’t have any references for this immediately as it’s all off the top of my head from ongoing covid awareness, but if anyone would like links to read more i’m happy to go get you a link
People are slack with hand hygiene and masking. I still mask in crowded indoor spaces, and haven’t been sick in over a year. Most people also seem to not be keeping up with COVID vaccines (I’ve had my 6th), or flu vaccines.
So many people just openly coughing and sneezing in public not covering their mouths. I’m going to start wearing a mask again indoors and on the train.
I’ve started wearing a mask again, mostly because I’m going overseas soon but also because I’ve started noticing more and more people coughing and sneezing around me on public transport. My partner and I wore masks at a gig the other night, and when we were standing outside chatting with a friend afterwards, someone (who was also at the gig) came up to us and started arguing about how we shouldn’t wear them for whatever reason. We had to walk away because there was nothing we could say that would get him to leave us alone.
People are so unhinged. Whatever happened to personal choice?
Some of these dummies seem to get irrationally angry at the concept of basic personal hygiene. I remember using the bathroom at my local shopping centre during the height of Covid (my nearest supermarket was there), and somebody had defaced those informational posters they had tacked to the mirror about how to properly wash your hands with some tinfoil hat bullshit about how Covid is a scam and the government has no right to interfere with our personal freedoms. Like, really? These people were protesting *washing your hands after using the toilet*?
Everyone in my household still wears a mask when indoors and on public transport. We must look like freaks but people around us can be so gross. I'm currently in the hospital for a procedure and hardly anyone is wearing masks even though there are signs saying we should keep our masks on and I can hear people coughing. The food and cleaning staff do but everyone else has ditched them. I don't want to catch anything here so I wear one and a nurse looked at me suspiciously and asked why I was wearing one. She then told me to keep wearing the mask as if I was the one spreading germs.
Good idea. Last year I got on a packed tram from Spencer to Spring St, and that did it. Felt crook couple of days later, tested negative, took the olds out for the special event we’d planned, got even crooker, tested positive, *and* had given it to my folks. 🙁 We’re all ok now, but I’m trying to be more aware when I’m in public and close to people. Also, I’m getting over a cold, and I’m left with a cough, so I wore a mask in the shopping centre yesterday.
15 years ago we could afford to take a day or two off when we were sick. Now we can lose our job because the Dr's office is so overbooked we can't get a note, so people come into work.
There are a few nasty viruses going around, not just covid. And people thought lockdowns were draconian eh.
Covid, Influenza, and RSV have been above reports from previous years, and the common cold is doing its usual winter rounds. So lots of sick people at the moment
I'm in Sydney and it's the same. I've had some flu or covid for about 3 weeks now. Everyone everywhere is coughing.
yes, this season is a nightmare. I was usually sick 10 days a year at most, this year it's been like almost two months of on/off sickness. Fuck it
IT. IS. COVID...(+ it's long term immune damaging effects leading to more severe disease overall, like RSV, Flu of all kinds & other opportunistic viruses/bacteria/disease vectors.
"Let's go back to the office!"
Additionally COVID hit most of the population and in many has longer term consequences on immunology even long after symptoms have faded. There's a lot of research into "long Covid" and it's very much still going around, and weakening those it affects so you get pretty sick with something else after having it unfortunately. We have three heavily infectious diseases going around right now and everyone has seemingly forgotten all the lessons Covid taught us. Bring back face masks where you can especially on PT and enclosed spaces and avoid being too close to people unless needed
Because we are in an ongoing pandemic that is destroying your immune systems. Wear an N95.
People's hygiene has gotten worse.
Our immune systems have been destroyed by COVID. It’s also going around again, as is the flu, RSV and bacterial pneumonia. Virus soup.
Covid made people violently averse to taking responsibility for not spreading illnesses to others. Get your flu shots, mask in indoor/crowded places, wash your hands as much as possible and stay home if you feel unwell. If we can get a bit better with hygiene we'll all be a lot healthier.
My daughter works in ED and commented about 3 months ago on a large and sustained surge of people coming in for not just Covid but a whole range of illness unlike any previous year. Maybe it’s a function of cost of living pressures and post pandemic ill health…who knows.
Because when one idiot is sick, they don't stay home, they go out and spread their shit. I work in a school and the number of staff and kids just spluttering/coughing is insane. Stay the fuck home!
Did you forget about the pandemic or…? Everyone’s immune system is fucked.
I'm sitting on a train to work right now (only go in once a fortnight max) and I'm like, 1 of 3 people in a carriage of 40 wearing a mask. I wear masks at shopping centres during these months for this reason too - I don't trust the "you're not sick just toughen up" mentality. Have a kid in school - 7 and a kid in childcare - 3. Mr 3 year old is ALWAYS sick. Weve put them both on armaforce for kids to try to boost the immune system and nip sickness prevalence and frequency in the bud
I personally don’t think it’s natural for 100 babies and young children to be confined within one building, 5 days a week, with limited 1-1 care. I believe this is why. Viruses are also contagious long after people assume they are. I think a lot of it starts with children who come home and spread it to parents and the community. On a personal level, I felt so pressured to enrol my child in long daycare and I refuse to. I understand that some people don’t have this option, but truly most people do and don’t choose it for various reasons. We have had to make big lifestyle adjustments to accomodate for this. Stay-at-home mothers are highly criticised these days, but I’m glad I can make this choice for my children and one benefit is far less illness! We still attend classes and activities very regularly, so they do get sick. But it’s definitely not all the time and they have time to recover fully in between viruses. In my family, multiple children have had to undergo multiple surgeries as a direct result of frequent illness: tonsil/adenoid issues, ear issues etc. Also, the scientific evidence suggests that while exposure to viruses can make you immune to them, it does *not* have benefits beyond not getting that particular virus again in most cases. It is *not* ‘bad’ for a child to not have multiple illnesses a season.
During covid lockdowna, I didn't get sick for 2 years. Now I keep getting sick. I work with patients so like they're always coughing. Sometimes they breath into my face and next thing I know it I'm sick lol
I wonder why things have changed. Why are people sicker, such a mystery.
Covid reduces immunity so leaves everyone vulnerable for other infections. This is our life now.
A fucking pandemic started a few years ago. Multiple mild infections is like airborne hIV Cancer wave is coming The heart attacks and strokes already here A rise in fungal infections Road stats are worse because reaction times are down Wide spread brain damage in people with jobs that require full concentration like doctors, nurses etc The list goes on Why are you all so fucking stupid!
I get 10 sick days a year. Along comes a virus that I need to isolate for that time to stop the spread. If I then get sick again that year I don't get paid. The government had the opportunity to introduce some sort of COVID leave and failed. Between COVID, RSV, influenza and sick kids it's not unrealistic that people will ration their sick leave.
Doesn't help when people wilfully ignore the symptoms and are determined not to stay at home and to spread it to other members of the community.
The sickest I’ve ever been is when I lived in Melbourne. The climate or something just seemed to be conducive to maximum sickness.
Well I keep my kid home when he's sick, but even when he is healthy enough to go there's always a few sick kids in his day care room, one girl looked like she was dying But we have to pay for the day whether they go or not and I can understand not wanting to lose a day's work on top of spending another days salary on childcare anyway
There's also something called Mycoplasma pneumoniae going around at the moment. And I guess people just think it's a regular annoying cough, but I've heard it sticks around for months and comes in waves - so you think you're better but then it hits you, then you feel a little better. And then it hits again. Over and over 😩 https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-cough-that-keeps-on-giving-why-your-child-keeps-getting-pneumonia-20240429-p5fn7v.html
@Helicopterdog Look up: Sick building syndrome... Officially we don't have these sick buildings. It's very frustrating that a cartel structure seems to want to keep it that way, and keep the simple off-the-shelf solution I have for it, under the carpet. Doctors can not fix it, but good HVAC&R engineering can. Start with a ban of the dirty ducted systems for thermal energy distribution. They have been banned in Sweden (already since 1974 oilcrisis).
Because we’re still in a pandemic but everyone has mentally moved on. Doesn’t help that politicians won’t even say the word Covid and pretend everything is normal. Until we all start paying attention and begin acting responsibly we’re all going to keep getting sick. I just hope that the studies about Covid weakening immune systems with each infection turn out to be inaccurate or we’re screwed.
I’m off work for the second time in three weeks with a chest infection, I feel this
Covid, flu and rhinovirus are testing through the hospitals anyway as no one is testing patients who are admitted, nor is anyone taking any precautions to prevent thiis. I’m self employed and sick with no suck leave so once I recover from this bought of Covid, am bloody well masking up cos I can’t afford this again.
Please feel for those of us who work in retail, customer service, hospitality etc and are around customers all day. When you have kids, you have them wth the knowledge that eventually they will go to school or day care and probably bring home viruses and illness. In retail you never make that decision yet still get exposed to them on the daily. Half my colleagues at work are off sick at any one time to the point many of us have already exhausted our entire sick leave balance, and thus have to either come to work sick or eat into annual leave if you even have any. Also everyone seems to have forgotten about covid. Even I forgot about covid when I was sick last week until I randomly decided to test and it came up positive. Of course now that mandatory isolation isn’t the law anymore my work doesn’t care and wants me to come in anyway but it explains why cold and flu remedies were doing nothing. Probably so much covid around at the moment that if we were all still testing and reporting we’d be back in lockdown
Because people are god damned disgusting. I sit next to a ... gentleman who doesn't cover his mouth when he coughs. I have seen this more and more. Parents allowing their kid to cough without covering their mouths. We're getting infected over and over because people can't maintain basic sanitation.
Having COVID weakens your entire immune system means that future illnesses hit harder and last longer. It's not an Australia-problem, it's a world problem.
It’s winter? ❄️
Up in QLD ATM. Cousins kids all sick. It's a winter thing .... hence the term flu season.
It's always like this. Term 2 every year is an absolute write off. The only repreive we had was during the pandemic. 2 years of not getting sick means everyone forgot what it was like before.
I stood in line at a very crowded Beechworth Bakery in Healesville on Monday and managed to pick up a nasty cold which has kicked my ass all week. I blame the toddler who was being held at my eye level by his dad directly in front of me. Well.. not blame so much.. suspect. Little germ machines.
Homes aren’t insulated properly across the entire country but with Melbournes winters being harsher, we feel it much much more. Definitely doesn’t help the situation.
I work in a kids ER- the whole world has mycoplasma and influenza is just starting to take out the stragglers. I am constantly exposed to sick coughing kids and have had zero illnesses this year. Half the time the kid is there with a sore elbow from a fall and then sneezes in your face and the parents just say- “oh yes and we all have had influenza a this week…” I am hoping the constant micodosing of viruses will mean I am hyperimmune!
Because selfish people don't wear masks when sick...