I'm not sure either way. I thought flu is a kind of generic, informal term and coronaviruses can give those symptoms so it's flu, in laymans' terms. I'm probably wrong.
Pre-2020 examples of coronaviruses in humans include:
- the common cold
- SARS
- MERS
The common cold is colloquially differentiated from the common flu. SARS and MERS generally are not referred to as a flu.
It's not a perfect proxy for colloquial language, but if you read the Wikipedia article for SARS for example, it says things like
"SARS produces flu-like symptoms"
and
"an electronic warning system that is part of the World Health Organization's Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), picked up reports of a "flu outbreak" in China"
.... where you will note "flu outbreak" is in quotes, meaning... it was not a flu outbreak.
Swine flu, and bird flu, in contrast, colloquially recognized "flus" are in fact variants of Influenza.
throwaway_pdp09|5 years ago
erikpukinskis|5 years ago
- the common cold
- SARS
- MERS
The common cold is colloquially differentiated from the common flu. SARS and MERS generally are not referred to as a flu.
It's not a perfect proxy for colloquial language, but if you read the Wikipedia article for SARS for example, it says things like
"SARS produces flu-like symptoms"
and
"an electronic warning system that is part of the World Health Organization's Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), picked up reports of a "flu outbreak" in China"
.... where you will note "flu outbreak" is in quotes, meaning... it was not a flu outbreak.
Swine flu, and bird flu, in contrast, colloquially recognized "flus" are in fact variants of Influenza.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...
unknown|5 years ago
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