Flu Stats & Facts

FACTS

  1. Flu influenza is typically contagious for 24 hours before symptoms appear, and continuous to be contagious for up to seven days.
  2. Cold and flu spread more easily in cold winter months because they thrive in colder, less humid environments.
  3. Cold and flu viruses are highly contagious and the contagious period begins immediately after infection. In the early stages of infection, a person with a cold or flu does not have symptoms like a blocked nose or coughing.
  4. When an infected person coughs or sneezes, their cold or flu virus becomes airborne and survives for approx. one hour in the air. If another person inhales the air carrying the cold or flu droplets, they can catch the virus.

STATS

Flu statistics

  • Each year, 5% to 20% of the U.S population will get the flu on average.
  • Adults get the flu twice per decade on average, but children are infected once very year on average.
  • An estimated 140,000 to 810,000 Americans are hospitalized each year because of complications from the fly illness.
  • 12,000 to 6,000 people have died each year from flu related in the U.S over the past decade.

Flu transmission

  • People infected with the flu can spread it to others up to about 6 feet away through airborne droplets that are exchanged when people who have the flu cough, sneeze, or talk.
  • Those infected with the flu are mist contagious in the first three to four days after their illness begins, but the virus can be spread before those who are infected.

Here’s how you catch the flu:

  • 24 hours-how long you can infect others before you have flu symptoms.
  • 5-7 days-the length of time after getting sick that you can still pass infection.
  • 2 days-the time between when you´re exposed and when you show symptoms