Catching a cold: why covering up properly doesn’t prevent you from getting sick?

As we get closer to winter, it’s a phrase we often hear. However, ‘catching cold’ does not exist.

Covering up well doesn’t prevent you from catching a bad cold. In effect, it’s not the fact of being cold that makes us fall illthese are the viruses that enter our body: through the mouth, the nose or the eyes.

Concretely : no germs around you, no colds.

However, we get sick more often in winter…

It is true and this is precisely where the cold plays a role, but indirectly:

– firstly because it pushes us to stay in closed placespoorly ventilated, favoring the transmission of microbes from individual to individual;

– low temperatures also prolong the resistance of the small protective shells of microbes and therefore their lifespan in the air and outside the body;

– another factor, we see less of the sun in winter. More difficult for ultraviolet rays to pierce the clouds, which usually degrade viruses.

How to avoid getting sick?

Obviously, there is no question of encouraging you to roll for three hours in the snow, in undress, in the middle of December. You risk this time hypothermia and more serious illnesses, at the cardiovascular level for example. But we will no longer speak of germs or viral respiratory infection.

That being said, the best way not to get sick is still to respect barrier gestures. If you are fragile, vaccination is also strongly recommended..

Wearing three sweaters will therefore not prevent you from getting sick, if you are in an environment favorable to the presence and spread of viruses. However, “coiling up” in a little plaid in front of a Netflix series when it’s – 2°C outside, it’s one of the little pleasures of winter…

Find the “Paravy explains” column every Wednesday at 6:40 p.m. on Radio SCOOP.