Flu season has already started and there are still rising covid cases. If someone catches either the flu or covid, how will they know which one they caught? Both have similar symptoms and are caused by different diseases.

Both the flu and covid share similar symptoms and differences. When someone looks at the symptoms between covid and the flu, they look almost identical except there are some key differences.

“Covid 19 tends to be much more orally focused, higher symptoms of decreased lung capacity and lower symptoms of general cough, but rather severe to extreme cough,” Travis Wimberley (‘22) said. “While the flu tends to leave you weazy and your lungs tend to be as usual.” 

The illnesses both have different key areas that they affect. 

When someone catches either of the illnesses, they might not show all the symptoms at first making it difficult to know which illness they have caught. 

“Well, everyone shows different signs of covid and some show none at all,” Brooklyn Johnston (‘24) said. “It’s hard to be sure if you have the flu, if you get a stuffy nose and sore throat if that is also a sign of covid.” 

Someone could possibly have one of the illnesses and might not know, from lack of experiencing the symptoms. 

To know exactly if someone does have one of the illnesses, Covid-19 has some key differences than what the flu has. 

“Covid has a few major signs, some being; difficulty to breathe, losing taste, losing smell,” Avery Barnes (‘24) said. “These aren’t as common with the flu, so this would bring people to get tested and find whether or not they had covid.” 

As Covid-19 has some major different symptoms than what the flu has, someone might be able to tell which one they caught based on the symptoms covid has rather than what the flu has.

Currently the flu already has a vaccine for its illness, while it was recently announced there would be a vaccine for Covid-19. As there are still high cases of covid, for everyone who has caught covid, they might be rushing to get the vaccine. Vaccines already help the future, the covid vaccine will hopefully be the same way.

“There won’t be the exact same strand of COVID-19 infecting people,” Jonathan Blasingame (‘21) said. “There could be a new strain or a mutation however that is unaffected by it, just like the flu does.” 

When people take the covid vaccine, the covid cases will drop and this could be better for the economy.

In the future when everyone gets a covid vaccine, this could create a new part where covid could happen yearly around.

“I think the creation of the covid vaccine will help get it to a point where we treat the flu where it comes and goes every year and there are certain times a year where people tend to get it more often,” Thomas Ginger (‘24) said.

The vaccine could cause covid to happen every year around a certain season, just like the flu.

The flu and covid share similar yet different symptoms. A way to know which one someone has caught is to remember the key points between covid and the flu.