I'm with LtS. Many people in the UK are unable to take the loss of pay if they stay off with a cold, there's nothing for the first three days and then it's £70 per week (c. USD 130) - ligging around at home feeling sorry for yourself just doesn't feed and clothe the kids.

And it's not just the bosses who take a dim view of the absentee - oftimes it's colleagues, too, who regard staying at home with a sniffle-piffle as 'swinging the lead'.
Too much wrapping-up in cotton wool has brought about a society with much lower resistance to infection than when I was a kid in the 50's.

Having said that, I have great sympathy for Kendall and others like him whose immune systems are impaired by serious illness (been there myself for the whole of 2006).

And anyway, what the feck's mononeucleosis?