LONG FLU: WHY IT'S NOT TO BE SNEEZED AT

Weeks of coughing, fever and fatigue? Now that winter's over, why are lots of us so wiped out?

- LESLEY JONES

'I just can’t shift this cold; I’ve been coughing for weeks; I feel exhausted; My brain fog is unreal.” Does all that sound familiar? Even if you dodged the worst of the lurgies doing the rounds this winter, cancelled diary dates and work sick notes are a reminder of just how many of us are still feeling the effects of what some people are calling long flu.

And it’s not just runny noses and hacking coughs. “These ‘long flu’ symptoms can also include anxiety, abnormal breathing, fatigue and headaches,” says Dr Matthew Calcasola, a General Medical Council doctor, NHS GP partner and member of the Royal College of General Practitioners.

“Now that people are mixing more, wearing masks less and paying less attention to ventilation and hand hygiene, opportunities to be infected – and to pass flu-like infections on – have increased significantly,” says Dr Calcasola, who agrees there’s been an unusual number of symptoms people can’t shift.

“This year’s flu has been difficult,” adds Naomi Watt, respiratory nurse specialist at Asthma + Lung UK. “Plus there was a triple threat this winter with a bad flu season, rising Covid-19 cases and dropping temperatures.”

More than 21 million people in the UK had the flu jab this winter, yet in November 10 times more people were in hospital with flu than at the same time the previous year. It was recently reported that more working days were lost to this “winter lurgy” than Covid. In fact, in just one week in November 1,043,965 working days were lost across the UK to “cough, cold and flu” at a cost of £143 million to the economy.