Researchers locked flu patients in a hotel with healthy adults — no one got sick

With an assertive caller strain spreading crossed the country, this year’s flu play has been marked by record-high hospitalizations and reportedly aggravated symptoms.

As radical look for ways to incorporate the spread, caller probe has recovered that a fewer elemental factors tin greatly trim transmission.

Researchers from the University of Maryland Schools of Public Health and Engineering successful College Park and the School of Medicine successful Baltimore studied influenza dispersed by placing flu-positive assemblage students successful a edifice country with steadfast middle-aged big volunteers.

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The study, published successful the diary PLOS Pathogens, is reportedly the archetypal objective proceedings investigating however the flu spreads from people infected radical to uninfected people, according to a property release.

The participants, including 11 steadfast volunteers, lived connected a quarantined level of a Baltimore-area edifice for 2 weeks. During that time, they simulated interactions, including having conversations, doing carnal activities similar yoga, and passing astir objects similar pens and tablets from infected radical to the remainder of the group.

New probe has experts questioning however the flu spreads done airborne transmission. (iStock)

Researchers monitored the participant’s symptoms, performed regular nasal swabs, and collected saliva and humor samples to trial for antibodies, the merchandise stated.

The survey besides measured the "viral exposure" successful the volunteers’ breathing aerial and ambient aerial successful the enactment room. The exhaled enactment of the participants was measured by a instrumentality called the Gesundheit II, invented by researcher Dr. Donald Milton and colleagues astatine Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

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At the extremity of the experiment, nary of the steadfast individuals had go infected with the flu owed to a assortment of factors. This included a deficiency of coughing, arsenic the infected students were holding "a batch of microorganism successful their noses" and lone tiny amounts were "expelled into the air," the researchers noted.

Researchers said due ventilation was a large origin successful halting flu dispersed successful this study. (iStock)

"Our information suggests cardinal things that summation the likelihood of flu transmission — coughing is simply a large one," Dr. Jianyu Lai, post-doctoral probe idiosyncratic and the study’s pb information expert and study writer, shared successful a statement.

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The different origin was ventilation and aerial movement, arsenic the aerial successful the survey country was "continually mixed rapidly by a heater and dehumidifier, and truthful the tiny amounts of microorganism successful the aerial were diluted," Lai pointed out.

The researcher added that middle-aged adults are "usually little susceptible" to influenza than younger adults.

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Most researchers presume that airborne transmission is simply a large origin of illness spread, according to Dr. Donald Milton, prof astatine SPH’s Department of Global, Environmental and Occupational Health and a planetary infectious illness aerobiology expert.

"At this clip of year, it seems similar everyone is catching the flu virus, and yet our survey showed nary transmission," helium said successful the aforesaid property release. "What does this accidental astir however flu spreads and however to halt outbreaks?"

There person been 81,000 flu-related hospitalizations and much than 3,000 deaths successful the U.S. this twelvemonth truthful far, information shows. (iStock)

Milton, who was reportedly among the archetypal experts to place however to halt the dispersed of COVID-19, noted that findings from these types of trials are indispensable to updating planetary infection-control guidelines.

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"Being up close, face-to-face with different radical indoors wherever the aerial isn’t moving much, seems to beryllium the astir risky happening — and it’s thing we each thin to bash a lot," helium said.

"At this clip of year, it seems similar everyone is catching the flu virus, and yet our survey showed nary transmission."

"Our results suggest that portable aerial purifiers that disturbance up the air, arsenic good arsenic cleanable it, could beryllium a large help," Milton suggested. "But if you are truly adjacent and idiosyncratic is coughing, the champion mode to enactment harmless is to deterioration a mask, particularly the N95."

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Approximately 11 cardinal flu illnesses and astir 5,000 deaths person occurred truthful acold successful the 2025-2026 influenza season, according to CDC data. A ample stock of the existent flu cases are caused by the caller influenza A subclade K variant.