Well, I’m pretty alert to seeing influxes of persons with strange patterns of Flu.
2 years ago we had an influx of young folks 18 to 25 come in with Flu sx’s and strange streaky temps” during the H1ni/scare. They never called it pneumonia per se, pneumonitis was used a few times as a dx and all the bacterial cultures came back negative...at least the initial ones.(They got prophylactically treated for potential bacterial “ride ins”) Of course all of them seemed to test “negative” for any sort of flu, but I felt at the time the data was being “hushed” up.
Massive steroids and antipyretics helped them get past the “crash” stage but they were intubated for a week or more. One I remember was a rather “cut” young man, one who one would never think that could get so sick! A number of staff became ill off and on at the same time but we’d all had flu shots provided by the hospital so none of the staff got so ill that they needed to be hospitalized. But it was a “flu” that just sort of “hung” on to those of us that had it for a month or more...the initial symptoms would ease up and we’d come back to work, but low energy and sinus/cough issues persisted for up to a month in most of us.
I suppose if I saw a suddden influx of folks with atypical flu sx’s(and one gets a feel for when the patterns don’t fit right)...I’ll isolate myself from my family and tell my wife and kids to take cover and do little out in public as much as possible. The kids thru school might have already had exposure but if no symptoms..they might have gotten lucky enough to have avoided it.
I had just what you described. Didn’t need to be out in the hospital.