• Question: Is COVID the flu

    Asked by anon-269505 on 10 Nov 2020.
    • Photo: Kirsty Lindsay

      Kirsty Lindsay answered on 10 Nov 2020:

      COVID-19 is a virus but it is not the flu, or influenza to give flu it’s the longer name. COVID-19 and flu caused by different viruses, but they both affect the respiratory (or breathing) system and make you feel poorly.

    • Photo: Ellie Pring

      Ellie Pring answered on 10 Nov 2020:

      COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus. Coronaviruses are named due to their ‘crown-like’ appearance under the microscope. The flu comes from a different family of viruses known as influenza. Some people may get muddled as both viruses can lead to similar symptoms but they have very different characteristics and different rates of mortality. Some scientists have found that infection with COVID-19 and influenza at the same time can be really bad so encourage any vulnerable friends and family to get their flu jab this year!

    • Photo: Joanna Giles

      Joanna Giles answered on 11 Nov 2020:

      Hi Jaden! That’s a great question because you probably hear this kind of thing being said all the time? Well, as the other scientists have said COVID is a virus, and the Flu is a virus. They are not the same virus eventhough they both make you feel poorly and will give similar symptoms (like a fever). The reason COVID has gone a bit bananas is because 1) people aren’t yet vaccinated against COVID (whereas there are flu jabs available every year) and 2) COVID is super contagious.

      So, they are similar in that people can die of flu and COVID when they are vulnerable. But, in a nutshell, no, they are not the same thing 🙂

    • Photo: Arthur Dyer

      Arthur Dyer answered on 11 Nov 2020:

      This is an awesome question! I work with viruses daily so love these kind of questions.

      Both COVID-19 and the Flu are illnesses caused by viruses.

      The flu is caused by a virus called influenza and COVID-19 is caused by a virus with the weird name SARS-CoV-2. They give you a similar illness they aren’t the same.

      It also means if you have the flu one year you aren’t protected from getting COVID-19 because they are different “bugs”.

    • Photo: Joanna Furnival-Adams

      Joanna Furnival-Adams answered on 11 Nov 2020:

      Good question! As others have said – there are similarities between the two viruses.

      However, because both diseases can affect many people, small differences in how harmful these viruses are can have a big impact on the population.

      COVID-19 is worse than the flu because causes more deaths and more severe symptoms in all age groups.
      Also, unlike the flu, COVID-19 can have long term effects on health that last for months (or maybe years).
      It also causes severe symptoms in younger and otherwise healthy people more often than the flu does.

      COVID-19 is a new disease that even scientists don’t fully understand yet; whereas the flu has been around for hundreds of years and we are familiar with how it behaves. We are learning more and more about COVID-19 every day though, and I feel confident that we will be able to control it soon.

    • Photo: Stephanie Longet

      Stephanie Longet answered on 11 Nov 2020:

      No, COVID-19 is not flu. COVID-19 is caused by a coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2 and flu by an influenza virus. Both are respiratory viruses. The range of severity for the disease is larger for COVID-19. There are some people with mild or moderate symptoms which are flu-like symptoms. However, some people have more symptoms like loss of smell or taste which are more specific to COVID-19. In addition, in severe cases of COVID-19, some people have a massive inflammation and some coagulation disorders. This type of problems is more specific to COVID-19. There are also some distinct differences in the impact of influenza and SARS-CoV-2 inside the cells.

    • Photo: Sarah Curtis

      Sarah Curtis answered on 11 Nov 2020:

      Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus that has recently emerged from animals to infect humans for the first time, sweeping across the world to cause a pandemic. The flu is caused by the influenza virus which originates from wild aquatic birds and acquired mutations to enable itself to infect humans. The last flu pandemic was in 2009 but thankfully was not as bad as anticipated. It’s a crafty virus in that it mutates each year to make it look a bit different to our immune cells in an attempt to go under the radar so it can spread throughout the body and live long enough to infect other people. Around February each year, the World Health Organisation sequences the genomes of the circulating viruses. Then scientists have about six months to make a flu vaccine that will match the circulating strain – hence the yearly winter flu jab! People are currently developing a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, but as I understand, the genome is quite stable (doesn’t mutate like influenza) which is probably a good thing for making a vaccine!

    • Photo: Bhagteshwar Singh

      Bhagteshwar Singh answered on 11 Nov 2020:

      No! With something new, it helps to think about something we’re more familiar with, that is kind of similar to it. Flu is caused by a virus (the influenza virus). So is COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2). They both mostly get into the body from bits of fluid or droplets in the air from coughing and sneezing. They cause infections of the lungs, and usually make people cough. But they’re different viruses. In fact, from quite different families of viruses. And so they do behave differently.

    • Photo: Nadia Terrazzini

      Nadia Terrazzini answered on 11 Nov 2020:

      Great question! Covid-19 and the Flu are both caused by viruses but they are very different type of viruses. The nasty Covid-19 is caused by a new virus called SARS-COV-2. This is a fancy name to describe a virus that gives us a respiratory disease and has a ‘corona’, i.e. a crown on its surface that makes it go into our cells. This virus causes infections which are a lot more serious than the Influenza virus.Also it is a new virus so people have no protection against it. That’s why everybody is waiting for a vaccine against it!

    • Photo: John Tregoning

      John Tregoning answered on 12 Nov 2020:

      Short answer is no – they are caused by different things.

      Flu is caused by Influenza virus named because it only happened at certain times of year so was believed to be under the star’s influence (influenza in latin)

      COVID-19 is caused by a coronavirus named because they have spikes that make them look like crowns (corona in Latin)

    • Photo: Christopher Marriott

      Christopher Marriott answered on 12 Nov 2020: last edited 19 Nov 2020 9:07 am

      Hi Jaden, all of the other scientists who have answered so far have done a pretty good job of answering this question already but I thought I’d also answer! The short answer is that COVID-19 and the flu have some similarities, in that they both cause similar symptoms and are both caused by viruses. However, COVID-19 is caused by a virus from the Coronavirus family, whilst the flu is caused by viruses from the influenza virus.

      The reason why we can vaccinate against the flu every year is that we can predict what strain of influenza virus is going to be most common in our country in a given year, and, since influenza has been around for a long time, we can therefore make a vaccine fairly quickly. The coronavirus that causes COVID-19, on the other hand, is new, so it’s taking us all a bit longer to find a vaccine that will work. Another big problem is that, because this strain of coronavirus is so new, we don’t know how well the vaccine will work, or how long it will keep us safe for. There are lots of scientists working on it though, so we should find a way to deal with it soon!

      EDIT: We have heard recently that a vaccine has been developed that seems to be safe in humans and effective at stopping COVID-19, which is great news! It now needs to be approved by the organisation which makes sure all of the safety experiments have been done, and then it can start to be given out to doctors who can then start vaccinating the public.

Comments

  • modelinor commented on :

    IMPORTANT: This question and its answers are about coronavirus (COVID-19). The information on this page might be out of date or wrong.
    For up-to-date health information and advice, please go to the NHS website: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/