Definitely alot of it about this year. Had a similar experience couple of weeks ago. Went to bed ~11pm on Friday night, effectively woke up the following Tuesday. High temperature, aching all over, in my case quite sensitive to bright light. Saturday & Sunday were the worst, just getting a cuppa felt like running a marathon, slept late both mornings, slept half the time when I was up, just drifting in and out of sleep. Felt like last year when we all got covid. Back at work on the Wednesday but not fully recovered until last weekend and on Monday / Tuesday started feeling the same again. Quick test showed positive for covid yesterday,
I expected a big upsurge in flu/norovirus etc last year when school re-opened, but never happened. This year, the last 1/2 term has seen relatively high absence in both staff and students, some classes down 20-25% with 10%+ teaching staff on sick at peak times. On reflection, think there a coup[le of factors at work
1. last year I think we were all being a bit more cautious, more people still wearing masks, limiting social mixing. Not saying all this was conscious action, but think the pandemic and 'stay safe' messages were always in the back of the mind
2. presenteeism; we are all encouraged to attend unless your at deaths door, 'do you really need to be off?' There's almost a bravado/one-up-manship of 'well I was coughing so hard my kidneys came up, but I still went to work!' It's all very commendable on one hand, but if you're infectious, working in a poorly ventilated work area with a large number of other people, you are being typhoid Mary.
Realise lots of people will say without presenteeism some people just take the p*ss and ring in sick every Monday/Friday, but a well run organisation should be able to deal with such individuals - monitoring of days sick / number of sick 'events' per time period.
