See arjie's comment in another branch of the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13666999

Quoting the linked paper:

> Conclusion: The home environment appears to play an > important role in the spread of influenza in adults, > but not the use of public transport.

Personally, I find public transit much less stressful than driving in a large city. Probably because I'm used to one, but not the other.

I wasn't trying to compare the stress of public transit to driving, just "stuffy and smelly" to "not stuffy and smelly". Arjie's government-funded study notwithstanding, it's common sense that you're more likely to get sick when being around sick people. Someone in the office gets sick? It spreads like wildfire, after that one borderline day that they decide to come in anyhow. How could it possibly be better, having much closer contact with many more people?

> Personally, I find public transit much less stressful than driving in a large city.

I'll agree with that, with the added asterisk that I try to avoid high-traffic times in both cases (and actually large cities in general).