It’s flu season.  Which means you should have gotten your shot by now- and, if not, hurry up, because it takes a few weeks to build up immunity.  Yes, I know the flu shot isn’t perfect.  At best, it reduces our chances of contracting the flu by 60%.   But, it does cut our chances of dying from the flu.

In the US, about ¾% (that’s slightly less than 1%) of us get hospitalized because we’ve contracted the flu.  You must realize that the number hospitalized is but a small percentage of those of us who contract the dread viral disease.

I’m also tired of hearing from folks who declare they got the flu from the flu shot.  That doesn’t happen.  Part of that complaint is that folks don’t realize that the stomach flu is not the same as this “flu”, which is respiratory.   The ‘respiratory’ is why some of us get hospitalized with the flu- because it may lead to pneumonia (or what physicians call pneumonia).

Whether we got the flu shot or not, we can still cut down the chance of “meeting” the flu virus with a few simple techniques.

One is something that I need to really practice.  I am the guy who shakes everybody’s hand when they come to shul (synagogue), usually even hugging them.  But, it’s a better practice to form a fist and bump knuckles.  (Unless, of course, you have a sink nearby where you can wash you hands immediately.  Yeah- I thought not.)

Which brings up an important fact.  Washing one’s hands means soap and water, with at least three complete rotations.  (That takes about 30 seconds of scrubbing and washing.)

Oh, and those faucets and sinks- they also need to be washed down (alcohol-based products work well against flu and a bunch of microbial species). Let’s not forget doorknobs, tables, and elevator buttons in this washdown process!

We also should carry a packet of tissues.  To cover our mouths and noses when we cough and sneeze.  The tissue will trap droplets or aerosols that could contain the flu virus.

While these are imperative practices to employ during flu season, they are good principles to use all year-long.

Then, we get to the harder things.  Most buildings are arranged to replace the air 4 times an hour.   (OK- department stores-6, restaurants- 12, for example.)   Those air flows are arranged with energy consumption and minimal human comfort in mind.

But, during flu season, we need to increase the air flow so that the flu virus can’t accumulate on surfaces.  (Most homes don’t have variable (or high) speed fans for their furnaces.  Neither do a lot of businesses.)  I recommend using  fans with HEPA [high-efficiency particulate arrestors] filters  (yes, I use these  same ones in the summer) and run them in high traffic areas (like the vestibule and the dining room).   That also means we need to change the filters routinely, too!

I’m not over-reacting.  We knew back in the 1970s that microbes can survive for days in 30% relative humidity environments (unpublished data, but here’s data showing that Serratia marcescens  (a prime microbe involved in hospital-acquired infections) can survive at such conditions .  That is why tile bathrooms in hospitals are really bad ideas.)

And, now there’s  new research  informing us that the flu vaccine can also survive freely in the air.  Those aerosols- despite what many practitioners believed (they thought the flu virus would die in the air)-  protect the virus, because of the mucous we expel with our coughed up viruses.  (And, humidity has little, if any, effect on the survivability.)

This data was developed by Drs. K.A. Kormuth and S.S. Lakdawala of the University of Pittsburgh, along with Dr. M.M. Myerburg (Pittsburgh); Drs. K. Lin, A.J. Prussin,  A.J. Tiwari, S.S. Cox and L.C. Marr  (Virginia Tech), and Dr. E.P. Vejerano (South Carolina).  They published their results in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.  The title says it all:  Influenza Virus Infectivity Is Retained in Aerosols and Droplets Independent of Relative Humidity.

The researchers used a rotating drum, into which they sprayed flu virus, all at different environmental conditions.    All of these data demonstrated that at humidities ranging from 23% to 98%, the virus survived for at least an hour.   (Their yet unpublished data showed that when mucus was present, active virus lasted for some 16 hours- and were still able to infect others.)

Please get your flu vaccination.  Because, as you can see, these flu virus particles are dying to infect you and me!

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