Thread by @DcrInYYC

Okay let me just help people's brains out a little bit:

1) "common cold" viruses.

- Rhinovirus, Human coronavirus (HCoV-229E, HCoV-OC43, HCoV-NL63, HCoV-HKU1), Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), Human parainfluenza viruses (HPIV-1, HPIV-2, HPIV-3, HPIV-4),

Adenovirus, Enterovirus, Human metapneumovirus (hMPV).

2) "flu" viruses - Influenza A H1N1, Influenza A H2N2, Influenza A H3N2, Influenza A H5N1, Influenza A H7N9, Influenza B Victoria, Influenza B Yamagata.

3) "covid-19" - SARS-CoV-2.

These are three broad categories of respiratory viruses rank from generally least severe to most severe. Don't intermix them, treat them as separate categories.

* BTW, that last influenza virus looks to have actually been eliminated because of measures taken during the pandemic. 🎉🎉

Also, here is a possibly abbreviated list of the viruses considered "endemic" in Canada. Hopefully you will note, that we don't choose to pretend that most of them don't exist.

Human papillomavirus (HPV), Herpes simplex virus (HSV), Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV),

Hepatitis B virus (HBV), Hepatitis C virus (HCV), Influenza A virus, Influenza B virus, Rhinovirus, Human coronavirus (HCoV-229E, HCoV-OC43, HCoV-NL63, HCoV-HKU1), Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), Human parainfluenza viruses (HPIV-1, HPIV-2, HPIV-3, HPIV-4),

Adenovirus, Enterovirus, Human metapneumovirus (hMPV), Varicella-zoster virus (VZV), Cytomegalovirus (CMV), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), SARS-CoV-2.

In the USA, you would need to add west nile & zika to the above list. (At least)

* okay I just want to be clear that I'm not trying to minimize any of these viruses, they can all cause complications, I simply am trying to help people understand what is being spoken about when people group things under ambiguous names.

Also want to be clear that the list of endemic viruses I provided is not complete & it changes. Climate change is actually creating endemic viruses in places where they didn't used to exist.