Chris

The difficulty with covid is that unlike flu, for example, it doesn’t reliably cause nasty cold-like symptoms in everyone. It’s all very well telling people to stay home if they feel unwell, but what really makes covid spread is the large number of people who are completely, or substantially, asymptomatic.

That said, any symptomatic respiratory viral infection is unpleasant and anyone with such symptoms ought to be keeping their distance from other people. The cold and flu remedy manufacturers have done society no favours in this regard, as their advertising has for decades promoted the idea that the best approach is to deal with the symptoms and then carry on as normal.