In Britain they had a totally dedicated cold research facility (lots of little huts for people to stay in), ran it for decades, some people kept going back, like an annual holiday, it was only shut down some time in the last decade, with no conclusive findings on "how to catch a cold", and they tried everything, including directly squirting up noses.
After goodness knows how many tens of millions of dollars, and, as I say, decades of dedicated research, the only useful thing to come out of it was: wash your hands, frequently.
Essentially that was their key finding: colds seemed to be spread via the hands, BUT via touching surfaces with one's hands! Hence, wash your hands often when colds are going around.
Sorry, not explaining that very well.
WRT flu - get an annual flu vaccination and wash your hands often!
Funny lot of comments on the thread: nobody offering up their suggestions on how flu is transmitted, yet that was the question posed. (To which I obviously don't have the answer; I'm happy to focus on avoidance.)
Yes Caz, in the last couple of years I think I read an article in Fairfax weekend magazine that explained all the studies that had looked at how you catch a cold, and how contradictory some of the different findings were.
I suppose it is also possible that cold virus (usually rhinovirus?) are spread by different means than the flu virus.
In Britain they had a totally dedicated cold research facility (lots of little huts for people to stay in), ran it for decades, some people kept going back, like an annual holiday, it was only shut down some time in the last decade, with no conclusive findings on "how to catch a cold", and they tried everything, including directly squirting up noses.
ReplyDeleteAfter goodness knows how many tens of millions of dollars, and, as I say, decades of dedicated research, the only useful thing to come out of it was: wash your hands, frequently.
Essentially that was their key finding: colds seemed to be spread via the hands, BUT via touching surfaces with one's hands! Hence, wash your hands often when colds are going around.
Sorry, not explaining that very well.
WRT flu - get an annual flu vaccination and wash your hands often!
Funny lot of comments on the thread: nobody offering up their suggestions on how flu is transmitted, yet that was the question posed. (To which I obviously don't have the answer; I'm happy to focus on avoidance.)
Yes Caz, in the last couple of years I think I read an article in Fairfax weekend magazine that explained all the studies that had looked at how you catch a cold, and how contradictory some of the different findings were.
ReplyDeleteI suppose it is also possible that cold virus (usually rhinovirus?) are spread by different means than the flu virus.