For months, my survivors never get any cold or flu.
Now they get cold now and then. Is it fluke or changed mechanism?
Probably from decreased health. Eating specific foods (such as anything in the Junk Food category, or mutagens) will lower your health, and make you more susceptible to cold and flu. The best way to avoid this is with the Leukocyte Breeder System, otherwise, find a way to increase your health. I actually don’t know any way to do this, but I think Dandelion Tea is supposed to help.
EDIT: The “Self Aware” Trait allows you to tell what your Health Stat is whenever you wake up or activate the trait.
That’s winter. 
Flu shots, gama globulin shots, and multivitamins increase health right?
Any healthy food will increase your Health Modifier, and your actual Health trends towards your Health Modifier over time. Fruits/vegetables are generally good for you, junk food, sodas, alcohol, and some smoked or jerked meats are bad for you.
Wearing environmental protection on your mouth I think also makes your more resistant to ambient diseases.
If it is still the case a gas mask will essentially render you immune to the flu.
Mask wouldn’t unless the filtration level was enough to block the virus in the air…assuming it was airborne to begin with and not tactile.
Wash your hands? Wear Gloves? An interesting idea from this thread, no? =)
In real life of course not. However in this game I presume the gas masks you find are rated for chemical and biological defense.
But why? There are many masks that are not rated for airborne diseases. Oddly enough you could use a standard 95 mask for cutting wood to help keep radioactive particles partially out of your lungs. Go figure -_-
PS-But not from contaminating your skin =P
if you are using pks rebalancing mod than health can be lost via temp inbalance and monster attacks.
Thanks for the advice and information!
I guess it’s winter! My survivor eats berry and then apple for the entirety of summer and autumn. He should be in good health.
It’s time to don the gas mask.
edit: royal jelly cures! Beakdog Wood River is going to put his mittens on those wiggling little bright bees…
How do you even get flu or other diseases like that? Those are person to person transmitted. Can they live on a dead body? I doubt it. If not, it shouldn’t even be possible to get sick like that except at the very beginning, like in the VBD start, which is an infection acquired prior to the cataclysm from human contact.
Well, your own body hosts a number of viruses that you’ve developed an immunity to. If you’re feeling sickly due to poor diet and subjecting yourself to extreme temperatures, than it is entirely possible to get sick from the viruses that are already on you.
Spanish flu was actually airborne. Several flues over the centuries have mutated into an airborne virus. Usually any flu pandemic can be traced to an airborne version of one.
Yes, but that doesn’t mean it can indefinitely survive in the air. It still requires some proximity to a presumably living carrier. I doubt it can just live in the air for days and days, floating and waiting for someone to inhale it.
The mycus can, why not a mutated version of the flu as the result of all the radiation and space time rifts? Suspension of disbelief here.
if a virus can survive for moment then it can survive basically forever. a virus has no biological processes so it will just sit and wait for something to inhale it.
The current state of disease mechanics seems to be due to undeveloped NPC AI and a lack of spare processing power for NPC-to-NPC-to-Player infections
Not according to this:
https://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/how-long-do-bacteria-and-viruses-live-outside-the-body.aspx
If I repeat it enough it might stick.
Edit: For those who don’t even know what the hell I’m talking about: