Public Transport Flu Fears Abolished

A regular train traveller myself I’m always worried about the hygiene with people constantly being ill in such a closed confined space it’s bound to have some sort of effect. The latest fear partially due to the weather recently is that of Flu, a survey was rolled out to 6,000 people from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical medicine and the results found that aside from common belief public transport was no more likely to aid in you catching the flu than any other form of travel.

Despite the results the only thing you weren’t as likely to get was the flu, those who frequently travel on public transport where more likely to feel ill or get common illnesses like a cough, cold or sore throats. Ideally it described trains, buses and tubes as perfect locations for the spread of low-level diseases but still denied that it made it more likely to catch flu. The spread of flu is down to touch, you need to come in direct contact with someone in order to get flu and this isn’t surprisingly likely on public transport.

Another dispelled rumour was that of “man flu” where it’s claimed men tend to over react when it comes to having a small cold or symptoms and is used as a little insult or “dig”, its found however that it could be the exact opposite, you could possibly be hearing “woman flu” sooner or later according to Dr Adler. “In fact we found that women tend to have an increased risk of reporting flu like symptoms,” Either way it seems everyone is worried about getting the flu and I’m doubtful that many people will trust these reports as there’s always going to be a certain common belief about the increased risk of diseases on public travel, I personally haven’t been swayed in my thoughts about catching diseases on public transport because of this report.