This Flu Is Kicking Everyone’s Ass

On Day 4 of my partner’s ongoing fever, I insisted he call his doctor. He’s currently laid up with a mean case of flu—the worst he’s had in his thirty-one years on Earth. His temperature fluctuates between 99° and 102°, flirting with 103°. He sweats out as much as he drinks in, yet cannot stop shivering. Constant pain radiates from his lower back. We’re making sure he goes easy on the Advil and Tylenol. Ask your doctor about Tamiflu today. At my behest, Finn will call his physician first thing Monday morning. 

If this year’s flu season seems more severe than usual, you aren’t wrong. It’s the worst round of flu viruses since pre-COVID times. In fact, the CDC is reporting the highest flu levels around the United States in 28 years. Last week, the Bay Area led California in flu-related hospitalizations. San Francisco reported its first case of H5N1 (avian flu) in January. 

The flu is not “just the flu” 

At the risk of sounding alarmist, you do not want to fuck with this stuff. My partner Finn is years younger, eats healthier, and walks more than me. He can barely walk between the bed and the refrigerator. We live in a studio apartment. Over nearly twelve years together, this is the sickest I’ve seen him. 

From what I gather, he’s not alone. Talk to anyone around here lately and you’re bound to hear, “Everyone’s sick right now.” One SF mom said between nine and twelve kids were out sick from her child’s class every day for almost two weeks. That’s just one classroom. Another parent said the flu wallopped their daughter’s preschool. “At one point all four teachers were out, and 10 out of 20 kids.” In @Classic-Professor422’s case, their flu gave way to pneumonia. 

The COVID vaccines are so good at mitigating severe illness, it’s easy to expect similar efficacy from modern influenza vaccines. The flu vaccine’s effectiveness hovers at around 40%, give or take in younger versus older populations. It also does not offer protection from H5N1 (avian flu). That’s not to say you shouldn’t bother—some protection is always better than none. The current flu vaccine preps your immune system for H1N1 (aka swine flu), H3N2, and Influenza B/Victoria lineage virus. 

Right now it’s the first two viruses hoarding all the airspace from a probably jealous coronavirus. Your odds of catching H1N1 or H3N2 are roughly fifty-fifty. Per the Chronicle, “H3N2…accounts for roughly 54% of the circulating influenza virus in the United States…The other predominant strain, H1N1, accounts for about 46%.” COVID meanwhile is taking some well-deserved time off from killing our nasty grandparents. Epidemiologist Caitlin Rivers recently told NPR that, “This is the smallest winter wave we’ve had since the pandemic began.”

What have we learned?

This flu season, venerate the millions dead from COVID by updating your booster/flu shots and, yes, wearing a mask. Sometimes it’s only polite, but it’s generally a good idea. You never know who people are on their way to see when you share the same air. I try to stay conscious of any behaviors that would transmit flu or COVID. I wear masks on public transit because people are gross, but I also make out with strangers at Powerhouse. I’m only human. 

But I always cover my cough. The number of people I see blasting guttural coughs into the air is infuriating. Inside your jacket, the crick of your elbow—just, not into the air where everyone else can inhale it. For God’s sake, cover your cough. 

The behaviors that protected us during COVID’s introduction are the ones that will keep us safe from H5N1 (avian flu) when it inevitably spills over. The two viruses are roughly the same size, beginning at 80 nanometers. N95 masks are great at barring them from your face holes. Wash your hands more. Carry hand sanitizer again. Keep masks and sanitizer in the same bag you keep that sweater you’re always carrying around. 

Our studio, the flu ward

Whatever strain of flu he has, it’s kicking my partner’s ass. I’ve been playing nurse all week and not in a kinky way. Since he and I live in close quarters, when one of us gets a bug, the other is next to catch it. I had H1N1 back in 2010, when it was new and everywhere. It remains the high water mark against which I measure all subsequent illness, so I braced myself for impact. 

But the truck didn’t hit me. Five days into my partner’s war with the flu, I have (knocks on wood) yet to contract it. I’m astonished, especially since I had two colds in January. Shouldn’t that have left my immune system tired and therefore vulnerable? I talk to so many people at the bar I work at, every sentence shouted over disco-house is laden with droplets of saliva. Above all, I forgot to get my flu shot this year. The chances I would come down with this terrible flu are pretty high. 

Maybe I’ll regret writing this, as if the flu subscribes to Broke-Ass Stuart, but I may have dodged this bullet. How is it I can sleep beside my febrile, shivering partner for a week and not get sick? I played around with the possibilities (his toothbrush touched mine and inoculated me; I already had it but was completely asymptomatic; the pot resin coating the inside of my lungs is keeping the virus out). My best theory is that the debilitating case of H1N1 I had (indeed, I love-tapped a Buick when I deliriously drove myself to the doctor), conferred a lasting immunity to the virus my partner is currently ill with.

May you be so lucky.