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We know now how flu spreads. It spreads by breath it spreads
through the air, which is why it moves so fast. To get typhoid,
you have to drink infected water, but with influenza, all you have
to do is breathe in while somebody else is breathing
out. If you're on a subway car, in an elevator with somebody with
influenza who sneezes, that air will be utterly full of viruses
and you will breathe them in, unless you can manage to hold your breath
for a number of minutes. I don't think there's any disease that moves
any faster through a population than influenza because it is
perfectly adapted to be breath-borne. It's a disease of the lungs
and every time you breathe out, you breathe out all kinds of virus
and, in this case, you were exhaling flu virus.
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