Increased physical proximity due to people spending more time indoors during winter contributes to higher cold and flu transmission rates.

“cold outside means people tend to be indoors more which increases physical proximity, which is one of the reasons why there's more cold and flu transmission.”

“So what the research clearly shows is that one of the reasons, not the only, but one of the reasons for the greater prevalence of colds and flus in the short days a.k.a. winter months of the year is that people are spending more time indoors and therefore at closer proximity, which raises a whole bunch of really interesting questions that have been explored in the peer reviewed research about proximity cold and flu transmission.”

“But the studies that have explored the relationship between physical proximity and transmission of cold and flu have actually analyzed things down to the range of well, if you're standing one foot apart or you're standing three feet apart or six feet apart, what's the probability that you will contract that cold or flu? And it follows a very direct relationship where the closer the proximity, the more likely that you're going to contract the cold or flu from”

“And it follows a very direct relationship where the closer the proximity, the more likely that you're going to contract the cold or flu from that person.”

“And there does seem to be a very nice relationship between physical distance between you, the uninfected person, and the sneezing, coughing, nose wiping, eye wiping, we'll get into why I mentioned all of those things in a moment, person that is suffering from the flu.”