• Original Articles By Dr. Lavin Featuring Expert Advice & Information about Pediatric Health Issues that you Care the Most About

    Contagion: Who’s Making You Sick?

    By Dr. Arthur Lavin

    This spring holiday season, we get lots of calls about colds and stomach flus, and one of the most common questions is, where did I get this dreadful disease from?

    Usually people are pretty certain is was from an older sibling, or Uncle Willy, or Grandma Jean.

    So we thought it would be interesting to think about contagion, where does that germ come from?

    The Germ

    In the case of all colds, and flus, and stomach flus, the guilty agent is a virus.  No virus, no cold.  No virus, no flu.  No virus, no stomach flu.

    The only way to get one of these diseases, is for a virus to land on you and grab hold.

    So the first clue on the hunt for the culprit who got you infected is that your illness came from a virus.

    All our viruses come from other people.  All viruses tend to be very species specific, for example, measles can only infect people.  So it can’t come from your dog or fish or cat.  It also means that every virus  you have ever had came from a person, from someone else who had that virus.

    How Common are Viruses

    Viruses are crazy common.

    There are many, many species that cause colds and flus, and several that cause stomach flu.  Many of these species have hundreds of varieties.

    The good news is that once you have had Rhinovirus #58, you are far less likely to ever catch that virus again.  But the bad news is that there are hundreds and hundreds of virus types, so all your life you can catch a cold or flu.

    Next you go somewhere it has to be quiet, like the end of a sermon, or between movements in an orchestra concert, take a listen to see how many people cough.

    A week or so ago I was at  Cleveland Orchestra concert and listened at quiet breaks.  It sounded like about half the audience erupted in horrible hacking coughs.  I thought, “that’s a lot more than usual,” and sure enough, the following week was a very busy one at the office with tons of colds.

    The average person, at any age, according to studies, has about 8 viral infections a year.  Some may last a day or so, some a month, but the average is 8 days.

    That means the 1.8 million people in Greater Cleveland have about 14-15 million viral infections a year,   That’s about 300,000 people in Greater Cleveland actively sick with a virus at any particular time.

    So viruses are crazy common.

    How do the Viruses Spread?

    Here is where it gets so interesting.  Viruses have been around longer than any human, much longer.  Viruses as noted before tend to adapt to one species at a time, so the human chickenpox virus can only infect humans, for example.   So there are viruses that only infect zebras, and mice, and ladybugs, and fish.  You can all the way back in the clock of life to the earliest forms of life.  Humans appeared about 150,000 years ago, but bacteria first showed up about 3.5 billion years ago, and it looks like viruses began to appear to infect them many billions of years ago too.

    Viruses have been finding a way to make their way from cell to cell, then, for billions of years.  They to it better than we do anything.

    They are so good at it, no human is entirely sure how they do it, but some paths are known for humans.

    The three key paths are air, handshake, and object.  Every sneeze and cough with a cold ejects zillions of infecting viruses into the air, so any room with a bunch of people tends to be loaded with virus.  For colds and stomach flus, viruses sit on our hands for a long time and any touch with that hand can give the virus a ride to the next victim.  Many cold and flu viruses can live for hours on counter-tops or any other object, so touching those can get the virus to you.

    The real point is that viruses are essentially everywhere.   If 300,000 people in Cleveland have an active viral infection right now, and they all are spewing out virus into the air, onto their hands, and on various surfaces, every day, you can almost count on a virus landing on you today, and every day.

    Contagion- How long do you shed virus when you get sick?

    For common colds and flus, you are contagious for an average of 3 weeks with each illness!

    You might be sick with a cold for 3 days, or 1 day, or 2 weeks, but in each instance you are spreading virus for 3 weeks even if you feel great for part of that time.

    Remember when we said the average person gets 8 colds a year, that means the average person is spreading virus for 24 weeks a year, about half a year!

    This is really true.  But what it means is that you cannot go anywhere where there are lots of people without someone contagious being there.  This includes school, church, synagogue, mosque, grocery store, gym, soccer field, you name it.

    For some viruses you are contagious for a year- that includes summer time stomach flus and mono.

    So, Who Gave My Child This Cold?

    Was it older brother Jason?

    Was it Daddy?

    Was it Uncle Richard?

    Was it Grandma Rose?

    Each had a cold, each held my child, I think one of them did it!

    But wait, did you take your child to the grocery store?  Did you go together to Jason’s school?  Did you go to a friend’s house?  Were you at a religious service?

    Were you at a playground?

    If you were anywhere where there are people, Jason, Daddy, Uncle Richard, and Grandma Rose remain suspects, but they join many dozens, maybe thousands of others.

    When scientists do DNA tracing they find that the viruses often come from people far from the home as well as the home.

    What this means is that no one ever really knows where their child’s virus came from.  Good news for Daddy, Jason, Uncle Richard, and Grandma Rose.

    The Power of Contagion and the School

    Contagion is a concept that is very popular.  I think it is comforting to believe that if you can identify exactly where your child’s virus came from, you can feel like there is no other source.  If Aunt Hilary gave your child their cold, then no one else is doing so, the danger can be contained.

    This is clearly the case with schools, which delight in sending home notices that a child has been identified as contagious.  If a school really wanted to inform you that a child at the school was contagious, it would have to send those notices home every day.   So I don’t think it is about informing families, it is about the illusion that if you keep that one identified child who is sick home, that viruses will no longer spread in the school.

    But keep in mind that even if every child with a fever or even a runny nose or cough is kept home, the fact that so many people have colds and that they remain contagious often long after their symptoms go away means that the school is loaded with contagious kids no matter what.

    The best example of this is the history of complete exclusion of kids with chickenpox rash.  In this example, all kids were contagious before the rash appeared, but no matter, everyone with the rash was kept home, and all kids complied,  Yet, by age 18, back when people got chickenpox, nearly 100% of kids had come down with chickenpox.  So here was a policy, universally accepted and implemented with a nearly 100% failure rate.  And so it is today with colds, flus, stomach aches, and even strep throat.

    BOTTOM LINES

    1. Viruses that cause colds, flus, and stomach flus are everywhere.
    2. Viruses have been finding a way to go from life form to life form for billions of years before humans even first appeared, they are very, very good at it.
    3. In the Cleveland area, just today, there are likely about 300,000 people able to spread their virus.
    4. Most people spend an average of about half a year contagious for one virus or another.
    5. And, on average, a person remains contagious for about 3 weeks.
    6. It’s tempting to blame the family member with the runny nose and horrid cough, or awful diarrhea, for your child’s cold or flu, but there are so many thousands of other very likely suspects, we never really can know.
    7. When it comes to school, pay no attention to alerts or notes on common viruses and strep, your child like all children is exposed to these every day at school.

    To your health,
    Dr. Arthur Lavin

     

    No comments yet.

    Leave a Reply