Flu season: Common myths debunked

Can you catch the flu from exposure to cold temperatures? Is the flu the same as a cold? EuroVerify takes a look.

Flu season is officially here, and along with it, a plethora of common misconceptions about the virus.
From the efficacy of vaccines to the medication you can take, a number of myths persist, both through word of mouth and online.
EuroVerify presented some of the most common myths to experts to see what they had to say.
“The answer to that one is a pretty easy ‘no’,” said Dr. Richard Webby, member of the Department of Host-Microbe Interactions at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
“That’s exactly the opposite of what the flu vaccine is designed to do,” he told EuroVerify. “It’s designed to induce immunity in your body that will help protect you, should you be exposed to the flu.”
“So, getting the flu shot won’t increase your chances of getting flu,” Webby added. “And the hope is that it will actually do the opposite.”
Dr. Koen Blot, head of infectious diseases epidemiology at Sciensano, Belgium’s national public health institute, also said that the vaccine will protect you rather than make you more susceptible to viruses that cause the flu.
He noted that it is important to take it regularly, due to the fact that the makeup of influenza changes from year to year.
“The vaccines are adapted to take into account these small changes in the genome and the micro-biological — the small structure of the virus — so that when you do get the vaccine, the chance of it protecting you compared to your immunity prior to taking it would better,” he said.
Both the flu and colds can provoke similar symptoms and often seem to be more prevalent during the winter months, leading to people using the terms interchangeably.
It is, however, inaccurate to do so. They are both contagious respiratory illnesses, but are caused by different viruses and can differ significantly in their severity.
“When people refer to having the cold or the flu, we tend to put them together when it is in fact a lot of different respiratory viruses, airborne viruses, that circulate during the winter period,” Blot said. “People can get very mild illness from the flu, but it can also become very severe depending on the person.”
Some people suffering from the flu may just get a runny or stuffy nose, similar to the common cold, while others may have much more serious symptoms with the virus invading and attacking the lung tissue, causing inflammation.
“That will cause a very deep, dry cough,” Blot said. “And if it gets inflamed even further because of the infection, then it’ll start to have a negative impact on the oxygen transmission that the lungs are supposed to get. And then people will start talking about shortness of breath.”
As the virus invades further into an infected individual, systemic symptoms develop that affect the entire body, such as fever, general malaise and muscle and joint aches.
“What we refer to as a cold is primarily not so much the lower respiratory tract of the lungs, but more of the upper respiratory tract around the throat and the nose, like a runny nose,” Blot said. “And that’s going to be milder.”
Due to the flu’s regular spread during the colder months, some assume that it’s the low temperatures themselves which cause the illness.
The truth isn’t quite so black-and-white, however.
“The bottom line is that no, it’s not cold temperatures specifically that cause you to catch the flu,” said Webby. “But having said that, of course, flu is a winter disease in more temperate regions of the world. If you are living around the equator, it’s actually more of a year-round disease with a couple of peaks during the season.”
Scientists are still not completely sure of the factors that drive the flu to be more of a winter disease in colder parts of the world, but it’s likely a combination of several different factors.
“We know that influenza transmits between people a little bit easier under certain humid conditions,” Webby said. “For example in winter, we tend to crowd together a little bit more and stay indoors.”
“That crowding creates the conditions that foster influenza spread a little bit more,” he added. “So the cold in itself is probably not as much of a factor, although it may play into that sort of mix of different things that drive it to be a winter disease. 
There is medication that you can take for the flu, according to Blot, but it’s not antibiotics, which are specifically made to ensure that bacteria do not grow.
These don’t work on viruses, which instead can be treated with antiviral therapies such as oseltamivir — also known under its brand name, Tamiflu.
“What the medication is intended to do is to stop the virus going from inside your infected lung tissue back outside into the respiratory tract to be further transmitted either to other people or further within your body, worsening the infection,” Blot said.
He added, though, that it is not completely clear whether oselramivir is effective in all cases of the flu.
“There are indications that it should be given early,” he said. “But even then, it’s not so clear whether it will have a very strong impact in making sure that you recover quicker, or that it will keep you from being hospitalised.”
The main guidelines for the treatment state that it should be given only to people who are at a very high risk.
“People who are severely ill will be treated with these antiviral medications, but it’s not something that is given to all people with a potential flu infection,” Blot said.
There is no magic formula to ensure you never catch the flu, but there are steps you can take to better protect yourself and significantly reduce the risk of developing serious illness.
“It’s those instructions your mum used to tell you and which we heard a thousand times over during the COVID pandemic: wash your hands, sneez in your elbow, if you’re feeling sick then stay at home,” Webby said.
Getting the flu jab is also really important, especially if you belong to a vulnerable group.
“The general recommendation is that everyone could benefit from getting the flu shot, and particularly the elderly or the people that, when they do get the flu shot, tend to get sicker,” Webby said. “That’s who should be top priority: the elderly and people with underlying conditions, such as diabetes.”