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Influenza

Flu Incubation Period

The gap between exposure to the virus and the first symptoms appearing — useful for tracing a likely exposure source after an office cluster.

This window explains why a workplace can see several cases appear within a short span even without an obvious single “patient zero” event — multiple people may have been exposed on the same day and simply develop symptoms at slightly different times.

If several cases appear in the same team within a few days of each other, it’s a reasonable signal to review shared spaces and consider a deep clean and disinfect to reduce residual surface load, alongside your standard sick leave response.