But flu isn’t just a cold, it’s a serious disease. If they are sick to the point they have fever then they can’t really afford to not rest as it has a cost in the form of longer health debt. And even short term, by letting the fever run and resting and being 100% operational can be more productive than being a zombie on medications for weeks.
By the time they can tell it's "the flu" and not just "a cold", they've been infecting everyone for days already.
Not to mention, cold is an infectious disease too (it's literally the same disease, just a weaker variant caused by strains that evolved their potency away), it too will spread to other people if they go to work.
> Not to mention, cold is an infectious disease too (it's literally the same disease, just a weaker variant caused by strains that evolved their potency away)
“The cold” is actually any of a wide variety of different viral diseases (caused by various forms of rhinovirus, coronavirus [0], and, I think, a few other kinds of viruses), none of which are flu (influenza virus). It is not a less potent flu.
[0] so calling COVID-19 “a bad cold” is correct from a certain point of view, despite being substantively misleading.
Fair, I was under the impression that some strains of influenza viruses are in the mix too, but apparently they're distinct and not part of the cocktail (surprising, given how the other viruses found themselves bucketed like this - they evolved to lose potency over time; I'd expect influenza strains would be on the same trajectory).
Still, my main point holds - you usually can't tell by symptoms alone, whether it's a common cold or a flu. In case you get severe symptoms, by the time you can, you've already been infectious for some time. So either way, the right time to call in sick is when you first notice the early symptoms - stuffy/runny nose, cough, headache, elevated body temperature. But obviously nobody does that, because it would mean calling in sick at random a dozen or more times per year.
Post-lockdown COVID was the only time I know of in the last few decades, and a brief time indeed, when it was socially acceptable to react to potential symptoms at the right time.
"Common cold" is what we call flu/COVID/bunch of other stuff when symptoms aren't severe enough to bother checking. There is no "cold virus", as cold isn't a specific sickness but a destination; it's a catch-all for respiratory pathogens that evolve their potency away.
By the time someone is able to tell they have "the flu", they should've been on a sick leave for 2-3 days already.
