{"id":270786,"date":"2026-01-06T19:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T19:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/270786\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T19:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T19:11:08","slug":"can-going-out-when-it-is-chilly-make-you-catch-a-cold-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/270786\/","title":{"rendered":"Can going out when it is chilly make you catch a cold? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Is spending too much time outside on chilly days to blame for coughs and runny noses? Not exactly. \u201cColds are more common in the winter, but it\u2019s almost certainly correlation, not causation,\u201d says John Tregoning, a professor in vaccine immunology at Imperial College London.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">One marginal factor is that UV light can kill viruses. Sneezing outside in the summer, for example, may expose viral droplets to sunlight, which can deactivate the virus, while faster evaporation causes it to desiccate. But the main driver is behavioural: in colder months, we spend more time indoors with poorer ventilation and in closer contact with others.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cDifferent cold and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/flu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/flu\/\">flu<\/a> viruses peak at different times in the winter,\u201d says Tregoning, the author of Live Forever? A Curious Scientist\u2019s Guide to Wellness, Ageing and Death. \u201cRhinovirus spikes when kids return to school and spread germs around in small classrooms. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/rsv\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/rsv\/\">RSV<\/a> \u2013 another cold virus which is serious in elderly people and babies \u2013 peaks around new year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Data from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/covid-19\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/covid-19\/\">Covid-19<\/a> pandemic shows how much human contact matters: many other viruses largely disappeared during lockdown because people weren\u2019t interacting. One strain of flu even became extinct due to lack of spread.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">That said, extreme cold can affect your susceptibility to viruses. \u201cIf you were cold all the time, losing calories and exhausted, you\u2019d be more prone to infection,\u201d Tregoning says. Studies also show that rhinoviruses grow a little better at cooler temperatures, and the body\u2019s ability to defend against viruses is slightly reduced in colder air.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The most effective protection? Vaccination against winter viruses such as flu and RSV. \u201cVaccines don\u2019t just prevent infection \u2013 they also have wider benefits, like reducing the risk of heart attacks,\u201d he says. \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is spending too much time outside on chilly days to blame for coughs and runny noses? Not exactly.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,64,13,14,21059,6,6693,11,12,15,16,5,15517,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-270786","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-covid-19","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-flu","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-health-wellness","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-rsv","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories","24":"tag-world","25":"tag-world-news","26":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115849742556478297","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}