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Using several large datasets describing health care visits, geographic movements and demographics of more than 150 million people over nine years, researchers at the University of Chicago have created models that predict the spread of influenza throughout the United States each year.
[...] In the paper, they liken the typical outbreak to a forest fire. To spread, a fire needs flammable, dry tinder, an initiating spark and wind to hasten its movement. In the southern U.S., people have a high degree of social connectivity. The number of close friends, friends who are also neighbors, and communities of people who all know each other is much higher than the country at large, meaning they have lots of opportunities to spread the flu.
This high social connectivity is the flammable material. The spark is the warm, humid weather of the southern coast, and the wind is the collective movement of all these people, over short distances by land, as they drive from county to county.
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.30756
Source: Massive data analysis shows what drives the spread of flu in the U.S.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday March 03 2018, @07:43PM (1 child)
Perhaps the key is warm, but not hot?
ISTM I recall a study about the persistence of flu virus in the air which was quite sticky about just what temperature it best persisted at.
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(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:12AM
Always thought cold air contributes not because it's cold but because it's dry, and when your sinuses are all dried out all that protective mucus and other juices can't do their jobs well.