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With new violence spreading across the country, this year’s flu season has been marked by record hospitalizations and reported severe symptoms.
As people look for ways to contain the spread, new research has found that a few simple things can significantly reduce transmission.
Researchers from the University of Maryland Schools of Public Health and Engineering in College Park and the School of Medicine in Baltimore studied the spread of the flu by placing college students with the flu in a hotel room with middle-aged healthy volunteers.
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The study, published in the journal PLOS Pathogens, is reportedly the first clinical trial to investigate how the flu spreads from naturally infected people to uninfected people, according to a press release.
The participants, including 11 healthy volunteers, lived in isolation at a hotel in the Baltimore area for two weeks. During that time, they simulated communication, including having conversations, doing physical activities like yoga, and passing things like pens and pills from infected people to the rest of the group.
A new study has experts questioning how the flu spreads through the air. (Stock)
The researchers monitored the participant’s symptoms, performed daily nasal swabs, and collected saliva and blood samples to test for antibodies, the release said.
The study also measured “viral exposure” in the volunteers’ breath and ambient air in the work room. The participants’ breathing was measured with a machine called Gesundheit II, which was developed by researcher Dr. Donald Milton and his colleagues at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
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At the end of the experiment, none of the healthy subjects had developed a fever for various reasons. This includes the lack of coughing, as infected students carried “a lot of virus in their noses” and only small amounts were “expelled into the air,” the researchers noted.
Researchers say that proper ventilation is a major factor in preventing the spread of influenza in this study. (Stock)
“Our data suggest important factors that increase the likelihood of transmission of influenza – coughing is the main one,” said Dr. Jianyu Lai, post-doctoral research scientist and lead data analyst of the study and author of the report, shared in a statement.
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Another factor was ventilation and air movement, as the air in the study room was “always mixed quickly with a heater and dehumidifier, so small amounts of germs in the air were diluted,” Lai said.
The researcher added that middle-aged adults are “more susceptible” to the flu than older adults.
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Most researchers think that airborne transmission is a major cause of the spread of disease, according to Dr. Donald Milton, a professor in SPH’s Department of Global Health, Environment and Work and an expert in global infectious disease aerobiology.
“At this time of the year, it seems that everyone gets the virus, however our research does not show transmission,” he said in the same statement. “What does this say about how the flu spreads and how to prevent outbreaks?”
There have been 81,000 flu-related hospitalizations and more than 3,000 deaths in the US this year so far, the data show. (Stock)
Milton, who was reportedly among the first experts to identify how to stop the spread of COVID-19, noted that findings from these types of tests are important for updating infection control guidelines around the world.
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“Being close, face-to-face with other people indoors when the air isn’t moving too much, seems like a very dangerous thing – and it’s something we all do a lot,” he said.
“At this time of year, it seems like everyone gets the flu virus, yet our research shows no transmission.”
“Our results suggest that portable air purifiers that agitate the air, as well as clean it, could be of great help,” suggests Milton. “But if you’re really close and someone is coughing, the best way to stay safe is to wear a mask, especially an N95.”
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There have been nearly 11 million flu infections and about 5,000 deaths so far in the 2025-2026 flu season, according to CDC data. The majority of current influenza infections are caused by the new influenza A subclade K strain.
