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CNN Live At Daybreak
Advice for Flu Season
Aired January 23, 2003 - 06:53 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: If you're heading to the office and you know everybody in your office is sick and you're scared of catching it -- you should hear all the coughing going on at CNN. It's amazing. Chad Myers is sick with the flu. So we decided it's time to call the doctor.
CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has some advice.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think I'm a pretty good person to actually talk about this, because I have been suffering from the crud for a couple of days now. But I'm not alone. About a billion colds and flu are suffered by Americans each year. That's about two to four per adult and six to eight for kids.
Now, it's not because it's cold outside -- a lot of people think that -- but rather because people are congregated here in a newsroom, as you can see, people typing away on typewriters. Well, the virus can stick around for about three hours on those typewriters. People talking on the phone, well, if someone just coughed or sneezed on that phone, you've got it. You can catch the rhino virus from that, as well.
So a lot of things you can try and do to actually prevent yourself from getting the cold or the flu. One of the things we talk about all the time, actually hand washing. That's a big one. We talk about it. It's very important. Avoid close contact with sick people and disinfect your work area.
One of the things I do is I actually keep some of this hand sanitizer actually at my desk. This works pretty well. I just clean my hands frequently throughout the day. I actually have desk sanitizer, as well. You can spray this on your work spaces. If you don't have some of this, you can just use alcohol wipes, simple alcohol wipes. Wipe off your phone, wipe off your keyboard. That seems to work.
Now, if you do get sick and you want to prevent yourself from getting sicker, like I did recently, one of the big things, again, try and get plenty of rest, drink plenty of fluids -- you hear those pieces of advice all the time. There are over the counter cold remedies for congestion, for headache, things like that. You can also take anti-virals to try and reduce the duration of the flu. And, finally, reduce stress. That's something we all talk about. Stress definitely weakness your immune system.
Also, there's a lot of myths out there about cold versus flu. Let's take a quick look at some of those. The first one, flu shots cause the flu. Well, that doesn't happen. Simply put, the flu shot doesn't have the active virus in it, so it can't actually cause the flu.
A second myth, starve a cold, feed a fever. That's probably wrong on both counts. You want to eat enough to actually make sure that you're fulfilling your appetite, but you don't want to either starve yourself or feed yourself too much, and certainly don't drink any alcohol.
And, finally, you can catch the flu or a cold from being outside in the cold weather. Again, we talked about that, it's not the cold weather outside, but rather the number of people inside.
And, finally, people also ask me a lot about the difference between a cold and the flu, and there are differences between a cold and the flu, if you think you might have one or the other. Let's take a look at some of the symptoms.
For a cold, runny nose, sneezing, congestion, cough and sore throat. It often starts in the throat. With the flu, you get more severe symptoms, certainly all around more severe symptoms than the cold. It usually comes on more abruptly, a high fever, severe body aches. That's something you see a lot with the flu as compared to the cold. And certainly we talk about the fact that the flu can be fatal. Thirty-six thousand people or so a year die from the flu. So it's certainly a serious concern -- back to you.
COSTELLO: Thank you, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired January 23, 2003 - 06:53 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: If you're heading to the office and you know everybody in your office is sick and you're scared of catching it -- you should hear all the coughing going on at CNN. It's amazing. Chad Myers is sick with the flu. So we decided it's time to call the doctor.
CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has some advice.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think I'm a pretty good person to actually talk about this, because I have been suffering from the crud for a couple of days now. But I'm not alone. About a billion colds and flu are suffered by Americans each year. That's about two to four per adult and six to eight for kids.
Now, it's not because it's cold outside -- a lot of people think that -- but rather because people are congregated here in a newsroom, as you can see, people typing away on typewriters. Well, the virus can stick around for about three hours on those typewriters. People talking on the phone, well, if someone just coughed or sneezed on that phone, you've got it. You can catch the rhino virus from that, as well.
So a lot of things you can try and do to actually prevent yourself from getting the cold or the flu. One of the things we talk about all the time, actually hand washing. That's a big one. We talk about it. It's very important. Avoid close contact with sick people and disinfect your work area.
One of the things I do is I actually keep some of this hand sanitizer actually at my desk. This works pretty well. I just clean my hands frequently throughout the day. I actually have desk sanitizer, as well. You can spray this on your work spaces. If you don't have some of this, you can just use alcohol wipes, simple alcohol wipes. Wipe off your phone, wipe off your keyboard. That seems to work.
Now, if you do get sick and you want to prevent yourself from getting sicker, like I did recently, one of the big things, again, try and get plenty of rest, drink plenty of fluids -- you hear those pieces of advice all the time. There are over the counter cold remedies for congestion, for headache, things like that. You can also take anti-virals to try and reduce the duration of the flu. And, finally, reduce stress. That's something we all talk about. Stress definitely weakness your immune system.
Also, there's a lot of myths out there about cold versus flu. Let's take a quick look at some of those. The first one, flu shots cause the flu. Well, that doesn't happen. Simply put, the flu shot doesn't have the active virus in it, so it can't actually cause the flu.
A second myth, starve a cold, feed a fever. That's probably wrong on both counts. You want to eat enough to actually make sure that you're fulfilling your appetite, but you don't want to either starve yourself or feed yourself too much, and certainly don't drink any alcohol.
And, finally, you can catch the flu or a cold from being outside in the cold weather. Again, we talked about that, it's not the cold weather outside, but rather the number of people inside.
And, finally, people also ask me a lot about the difference between a cold and the flu, and there are differences between a cold and the flu, if you think you might have one or the other. Let's take a look at some of the symptoms.
For a cold, runny nose, sneezing, congestion, cough and sore throat. It often starts in the throat. With the flu, you get more severe symptoms, certainly all around more severe symptoms than the cold. It usually comes on more abruptly, a high fever, severe body aches. That's something you see a lot with the flu as compared to the cold. And certainly we talk about the fact that the flu can be fatal. Thirty-six thousand people or so a year die from the flu. So it's certainly a serious concern -- back to you.
COSTELLO: Thank you, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
