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5 Strange Places You Can Catch Airborne Viruses Like Bronchitis
Last winter, a Parisian IT consultant found herself bedridden after a routine trip to a coworking space’s glass-walled elevator. The tight quarters and silent hum of recycled air left every cough and sneeze lingering as passengers pressed buttons in turn, turning what seemed like a mundane commute into a viral relay. In Reykjavik’s popular geothermal spas, another young traveler discovered that the warm, humid clouds rising from a sauna bench were nearly perfect carriers for invisible droplets—by the time she left, she carried home more than just relaxed muscles.
Meanwhile, in a converted warehouse-turned–indoor trampoline park in Melbourne, children and parents alike breathed hard as they bounced shoulder to shoulder. One Melbourne pediatrician noted a spike in bronchitis cases traced directly to that site, where expelled aerosols from deep breaths hovered above the foam pits for minutes. In downtown Tokyo’s micro-lounges, where business travelers squeeze into karaoke booths, the combination of close singing sessions and shared microphones can transform a single infected guest into a silent super-spreader.
Nor are even state-of-the-art cryotherapy chambers immune: We’ve yet to see an infection documented from these machines, but an Olympic hopeful in Colorado Springs showed up to practice with a cough after toughing out two minutes at 120° next to his fellow athletes, and lo and behold, the helmet and mask that protected his face from frostbite didn’t prevent exhaled air from being funneled toward the next person. From extremes of temperature to high-energy play zones, these oddball hot spots reveal that wherever people share confined, recirculated air, bronchitis-causing viruses seize their opportunities — and remind us that prevention often lies in ventilation as much as handwashing.
