Beware: airports and planes

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 01:54:41 GMT

Unfortunately, these are places where it's very easy to catch a respiratory infection. For example, I caught the infamous swine flu on a plane. It happened in 2009, and although I only felt ill for two days, that was enough. Of course, I wasn't tested, but it was most likely the flu. I haven't had respiratory infections since childhood.
If you get a dose of viruses that your body can't handle without extraordinary measures, there's only one option: getting sick with a fever of 39°C or even higher Nausea and vomiting are also common.
No measures, like the healthy lifestyle I've been leading for a while, will help here, except perhaps slightly alleviate the severity of the symptoms. Ice-bathing is certainly beneficial (as the saying goes, if you don't die from it, you'll live to old age). But it doesn't provide direct protection against infectious agents.

Despite the cold, the physical work—breaking through ice is quite difficult—keeps the body warm. Besides, my friend (a future sports doctor of the Finnish hockey team) and me ran about 2 miles to the swimming area and back, which also kept the body warm. The water temperature of 4°C is nothing. Аir temperature of -25°C (this day was unexpectedly cold) was more serious.
The flu vaccine may be ineffective because there are thousands of virus variants with different antigens.
Incidentally, the seasonal flu vaccine has a pleasant side effect: a study showed a 40% reduction in the incidence of dementia during certain periods of time
Another paper on the subject https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35723106/. ( Read more... )

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Beware: airports and planes