Why Is Winter Cold Season?

Yesterday you felt completely fine, no sore throat, not a single sneeze. Suddenly you wake up the next morning and notice the distinct scratchy throat that marks the beginning of a cold. It is beginning to get cold out, which means it’s cold and flu season. Half your class was out the other day, anyways, likely sick from the same cold.

But why is this? There’s no way it’s just a coincidence your school’s student body has caught the same sickness. Plus, it’s always around winter….Could it be the weather? There are several reasons why the sick season is always in the winter, and it’s true the cold weather is a key part in it, but it may influence the sickness more than you think.

Exactly how long has the flu been around? To answer that question, we can trace it back to its earliest mention. According to “Influenza” by History.com, the Hippocrates in Northern Greece, had an outbreak of a similar sickness in 410 B.C. Then, in 1357, the Italian term “influenza di freddo,” was used to describe a “cold influence.” However, influenza was not a common term until the 1700s in Britain where both “cold influence” and astrology (influenza di stelle) were believed to be the culprit of disease.

So why do we get sick in the chilly months? Despite the more obvious reason of cold weather, of course. In the article, “Do People Really Get Sick More Often During the Winter?” by Atlantic Health, the author states that we spend more time inside during the winter. This means exposure to germs is more likely because there isn’t as much air circulating as outside. Overall, being indoors because of the cold can also contribute to catching a cold.

To conclude, the winter months began to be called the cold and flu months because of the sheer virality of the sicknesses in those months. They are caught more in these cold months because of the increase of being indoors and the cold weather outdoors. So next time you catch a cold, maybe you’ll finally understand why? Or you could just blame it on the snotty classmate sitting next to you, which is an equally understandable argument.