If you live somewhere warm, do you still catch as many colds?

[Gobrookeyourself]

just that really. I was wondering whether people who lived in warmer climates still had that period the UK seems to have from October-March where bugs seem to be rife.

similarly, in colder places like Sweden, do they also catch things as frequently as we seem to here? Both DC have had a cough and runny nose since October and I’m ready for them to end!

When I first moved to Melbourne at 50 I didn't cold, but my God the whoppers I got the moment I started teaching.

Since then I rarely get colds, years go by, but that's one of the advantages of getting older (68).

In Ireland, there's a lot of talk every winter about how we don't have properly cold weather, and if we did, the 'bugs would all be killed off' and we'd be healthier.

We were in Lapland a couple of years ago, in January, and it was -31c during the day. Properly cold, I'd say: our eyelashes froze solid and snapped off. So I asked a local if they're all very healthy in the winter with no colds or anything. The answer was an emphatic 'no', with a side order of 'that's bonkers'.

Oh, and I've just come back from Florida, where it hit 30c multiple days, and all 5 of us came back with a stinker of a cold.

@UtterlyUnimaginativeUsername i usually come back with a cold from holiday, especially if it’s from somewhere warm, but I’ve always put it down to the change in weather between there and here and planes being a hot box for germs?

it’s interesting to hear though, maybe I need to think realistically about my dreams of moving to a hot climate away from constant colds!

I've lived in warm(er) parts of the UK (London, Brighton, Kent) and properly warm/hot places (Arizona, southern California) and now coldish and damp places (Edinburgh, Glasgow) and there doesn't seem to be much difference.

I don't think cold viruses have much to do with the temperature or climate. They just spread when people gather, particularly indoors.

I think one of the reasons transmission of colds (as well as things like covid) drop a bit over summer is that people tend to spend more time outside, where viruses don't spread from person to person as easily.

Also most people tend to be a bit more active in the summer, which boosts the immune system a bit.

Post-holiday cold more likely to be caught at the airport. Airports are generally Germ Central. Planes are generally better as the air recirculation systems generally suck the exhalation up and away for aggressive filtering.

Our cold wasn't post-holiday, we all came down with it before the end of the holiday.

I lived in the Middle East in a very hot country and wasn’t ill once while I was there.

Am ill several times in most UK winters.

Humans are tropical creatures, we don’t do well in cold damp weather 🤷‍♀️