Cold & Flu: When Are You Most Contagious?

Now, the diabolical thing about the flu virus is that just like the diabolical thing about the cold virus, you start shedding virus, that is you are contagious about 24 hours prior to the onset of first symptoms for you. So that means that you can be a flu viral vector even when you aren't having symptoms. That's just the unfortunate aspect of these viruses. They're very clever. They don't have brains. But these viruses have adapted to propagate from host to host to host. They have a drive to continue to stay alive and to infect more hosts. So even though they don't have a brain, they have a sort of, let's call it viral intelligence. And as I've said several times now, if you are still exhibiting symptoms of the cold or flu, you are contagious. However, with respect to the flu, you are most contagious during the three days when you feel the absolute worst, when your fever is at its worst, when you are coughing and sneezing, headache, all of that, when that is at its peak, that that is when you are most contagious.