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Comment by rhn_mk1 | Hacker News Reader

That getting a cold does/does not come from exposure to low temperatures is a strong conviction I've encountered in both versions.

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From what I've understood, being cold weakens your immune system. So while the main cause is the closer contact to others, the cold weather does make it more likely to get sick.

That's a very wishy-washy response without an effect size, though.

It's the kind of thing that's hard to quantify. But we have good reasons why cold weather weakens your immune system with how it effects mucus production. And people with weaker immune systems get sick more often. Therefore, stay warm to reduce chance of illness

Unless it's like half a percent of the base rate, in which case you're wasting effort and failing to enjoy situations for no good reason.

Getting sick less is a secondary benefit of not getting hypothermia. Being cold isn't really an enjoyable thing.

> Being cold isn't really an enjoyable thing.

Sometimes it can be.

Sometimes there are tradeoffs.

If it was as simple as "don't do the thing you hate", nobody would ever get cold in the first place, regardless of it makes them sick.

So it matters whether the sickness effect is negligible or not.

>Sometimes it can be.

Nope. I guarantee people would like skiing more if you were possible at ~70 degrees. Snowmobiles can be fun, but they'd be more fun without the twenty extra layers of clothing you need to put on. Warming yourself by a fire can be nice, but it's the warming that's enjoyable. Being cold sucks.

Again, being cold leads to hypothermia. Just wear a coat, it's not that big of a deal.

If it was as simple as "don't do the thing you hate", nobody would ever get cold in the first place, regardless of it makes them sick.

Those I can understand. It doesn't really take magical thinking, some viruses perform better at colder temperatures.

Things like magnetic bangles, crystals and other stuff does appear in the west. I can't say how prevalent. Anecdotally it wasn't common amongst western researchers I've known, at least not outwardly.

Ah, I can point out some along those lines, too. Acupressure. Chiropractors. Horoscopes.

Less fringe, but also less magical: the notion that a wild animal will abandon their young if a human touches them. It doesn't really make a lot of sense, but only on a second thought.

If a human touchea a young wild animal, the human will abandon life soon; is that what you meant?

There's an entire trend of witchiness with the secular, where they disavow traditional western beliefs but subscribe to paganistic beliefs on spells, charms, and magic. This stuff isn't uncommon at all honestly

It is easy to understand why people might assume so. There is a correlation. In colder temperatures people gather in indoor spaces and that helps spread the virus.

The reasons respiratory illnesses tend to be more prevalent in winter are not so definitively understood.

I'm not a medic but it would seem rational to me that if viruses spread from one person to another then when people are close together in a group in a room for longer periods of time and the same air circulates in the room rather than get blown a way by wind outside, then it is much easier to spread the virus.

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