The COVID-19 and flu are both respiratory infectious diseases, with similar symptoms including fever and cough, but they are not the same.

Both the COVID-19 and flu are diseases caused by a virus. In the case of flu, the pathogens(病原体) are flu viruses, and for COVID-19, it is a novel coronavirus(新型冠状病毒).

Common symptoms for flu and novel coronavirus are nearly identical fever, cough and tiredness, sometimes sore throat and diarrhea. In severe cases, they result in pneumonia(肺炎), and even deaths in the worst cases. Flu has seasonal ups and downs. Although it can exist all year round, the virus infects more people in winter and spring. As for the novel coronavirus, there is not yet enough evidence showing how it would                    respond to changing weather.

The mortality rate(死亡率) for the novel coronavirus is higher than that for flu. Generally, people with poor immunity(免疫力), especially children and seniors, are more likely to catch seasonal flu and develop into severe cases. As for the novel coronavirus, the median age for the infected is 51. But the novel coronavirus is a brand-new virus, and no one has total                    immunity no matter their age.

Both the flu and the novel coronavirus are transmitted in similar ways, by direct contact with infected patients or small droplets from the nose or mouth when a person with viruses coughs or breathes.

Flu can be spread by an infected person for several days before their symptoms appear. As for the novel coronavirus, spread might be possible before people show symptoms, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.

For the novel coronavirus, there is also a risk for aerosol transmission(气溶胶传播). In health facilities, people may catch the virus if they breathed in aerosol, the suspension of fine solid or liquid particles in the air, which have been contaminated by the virus. The novel coronavirus has also been found in patients' fecal(排泄物) samples, but fecal-oral transmission does not appear to be a major transmission route.

People at risk of a heart attack or stroke could benefit from blood­pressure­lowering drugs even if their blood pressure is considered in the normal, healthy range. If such drugs were offered to people with cardiac (心脏的) risks regardless of their blood pressure at the beginning of treatment it could save millions of lives, researchers in Oxford University found.

For the study, the team analyzed more than 120 medical trials including around 600,000 people conducted over two decades, saying their findings are a call for an urgent review of existing blood pressure treatment guidelines. “Our findings clearly show that treating blood pressure to a lower level could greatly reduce the risk of cardiovascular (心血管的) disease, if widely conducted,” said study lead author Kazem Rahimi.

High blood pressure has long been identified as a factor in higher risks of heart disease and strokes, and makes more than a billion people around the globe in torment — including one out of three US adults.

Blood pressure is recorded in millimeters of mercury (mmHg) as two numbers in a ratio: “systolic” pressure inside the arteries (动脉) when the heart beats as the top number, and “diastolic (舒张的)” pressure between heartbeats, as the heart rests and is refilled with blood. “Normal” blood pressure is considered at 120/80 or below, and is considered “high” at 140/90 or above, according to the American Heart Association. The researchers said their study showed that for every reduction in systolic pressure of 10 mmHg, the risk of heart attacks was reduced by a fifth and that of a stroke around a quarter.

Some experts said they thought the study’s findings were important but did offer some warnings. “One important warning is that not everyone will be able to tolerate having their blood pressure reduced to low levels, and there is a need to balance possible drug side effects and likely benefits,” Smeeth said.

People with social anxiety may benefit from mindfulness therapy combined with exposure to odours (a particular smell, especially an unpleasant smell) from others’ sweat, according to a study.

Lead researcher Elisa Vigna, of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, explained that an individual’s state of mind caused the production of chemo-signals in sweat that communicated an emotional state and produced corresponding responses in other people.

“The results of our initial study show that combining these chemo-signals with mindfulness therapy seems to produce better results in treating social anxiety than can be achieved by mindfulness therapy alone,” she said.

The study — which is being presented this week at the European congress of psychiatry in Paris — involved collecting sweat from volunteers, and then exposing patients being treated for social anxiety to chemo-signals extracted from those samples. The samples were collected from people who were watching clips from films chosen to elicit particular emotional states, such as fear or happiness. They included Mr. Bean’s Holiday and Sister Act, as well as horror films such as The Grudge.

Once the sweat had been collected, researchers selected 48 women, all of whom suffered from social anxiety, and divided them into three groups, each of 16 people. Over two days, they all underwent mindfulness therapy for social anxiety. At the same time, each group was exposed to the odour samples or to clean air.

The study found that the women who had been exposed to the odour samples responded better to the therapy. Patients who undertook one treatment session of mindfulness therapy together with being exposed to human body odours showed about 39% reduction in anxiety scores. There was a 17% reduction in anxiety scores after one treatment session in the group receiving only the therapy.

Vigna said: “We were a little surprised to find that the emotional state of the person producing the sweat didn’t differ in treatment outcomes: sweat produced while someone was happy had the same effect as someone who had been scared by a movie clip. So there may be something about human chemo-signals in sweat generally which affects the response to treatment. It may be that simply being exposed to the presence of someone else has this effect, but we need to confirm this.”