Considering the Flu Mystery.

I read in the news this morning that admissions to hospitals in the UK for cases of flu have risen 50% over the same period last year. And every year at around this time the news is full of wailing about the immense pressure under which the poor, benighted NHS is put throughout the flu season. I ask myself why that should be because in all my life I’ve never known anyone be admitted to hospital to be treated for flu.

When I was in my mid-forties I contracted a bad bout of it. It was winter and I was living in an old house which had no heating other than a gas fire in the living room. I took three days off work and rested up. In addition, for the only time in my life, I spent one whole day in bed. And then I went back to work on the fourth day. It was an unpleasant experience but something which simply needed to be got through until it burned itself out. And that was how everybody I’d ever known handled it.

So what’s different about now? Is it to do with the increasing age demographic? That hardly seems likely to explain such a rise because the age demographic isn’t going up that much. Are modern flu viruses much stronger than they used to be? Is there something about modern social habits which leads people to be more exposed to it? Or are we becoming so wimpy that we expect advanced medical treatment for everything from cancer to a wart on the left little finger?

Maybe it’s a combination of all of them. The next time I see my doctor I must ask him.

(And I still couldn’t find anything amusing to say about this one. I’m sure I would have done once. Then again, my house is uncomfortable tonight because the bitingly cold wind is in the east, and that’s always bad news.)