Talk:Flu season

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[edit] I made this article

I just made this article and am skeptical that it hasn't been made already, or that I know anying about flu seasons.

[edit] What's going on?

I just saw on CNN that the flu season is still going on. Is it a 9 month long season or something? It's becoming almost the whole year, meaning you are never safe from the flu. I didn't get a flu shot this year and I thought I was lucky that I had survived another flu season without getting sick. It seems like every year the scare is worse and worse. The scare of 2004 was that we had a shortage of shots and that people not being immunized would cause a really bad flu season. Then in 2005 and still going on now, they want to scare us with this Avian Bird Flu. Does anyone else think they make these things up to sell flu shots? Toby Ziegler 04:20 March 18, 2006 (UTC)

Flu season is when it is cold (winter in the north hemisphere, summer in the south hemisphere). Flu is transmitted all year round every year. It is just worse when it is cold. Heat kills the virus. Cold lets it live on surfaces where you touch it with your hand, then touch your face and catch it.

The bird flu or H5N1 pandemic threat is a very real threat, but it is currently a flu birds get, not usually humans.

The flu shots you get from a doctor do not protect humans from bird flu viruses, they only protect you from some human flu viruses. WAS 4.250 21:28, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm somewhat skeptical about the popular explanation for the flu season, i.e., people being indoors and drier air.

I've lived in Phoenix Arizona now for six years, and it's in the summer that people stay indoors, and the AC units dry the air even more. In the winter people spend more time outdoors, moister air, etc. But, winter is still the flu season.

There must be another explanation I suspect. 71.209.255.102 22:02, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

No one knows the cause of seasonality in flu. But just this year (or so) the evidence has come in that H5N1 is seasonal in both birds and humans. Maybe human flu is somehow tied to bird yearly migrations? But human flu is supposed to be a flu based on a virus adapted to humans. But maybe some birds also get infected with human flu virus? As I say, as of now, no one knows the real cause of flu seasonality. Real modern research into flu did not get much funding before H5N1 killed people a few years ago. Now it is getting billions of dollars. I suspect the knowledge of flu seasonality's real cause will fall out from this current flu research. WAS 4.250 02:45, 2 January 2007 (UTC)