god, if the brutal cold I've had this week is any indication, the rhinoviruses are seriously pissed off that the coronaviruses have gotten all the attention lately
Conversation
Replying to
I've always wondered -- if some flu strains are being made extinct by covid precautions, why do colds seem unaffected? Is there a natural reservoir for them just everywhere?
3
1
There are 200+ viruses that cause the common cold, they're incredibly transmissible, no testing or vaccines, most cases are mild from repeated exposure in childhood, lots of asymptomatic spread. Average person gets something like 3 colds a year
1
5
This. Normal flu is less transmissible than COVID (R0 somewhere between 1 and 2), so measures that blunt COVID eliminate flu almost entirely. "The" cold is somewhere between as contagious and more contagious than COVID depending on strains, so...
2
2
Flu was really cut down a lot by covid precautions: twitter.com/bachyns/status
and both the cold and flu are less contagious so if folks just keep wearing masks we should be good wrt to both: twitter.com/shafikyaghmour
Haven't had a serious cold in 2 years and I am want to keep that.
Quote Tweet
Listening to NPR, this program is explaining, once covid is done how do you prevent colds and flu?
Surprise, the same things we are doing now will prevent colds and flu. Wear masks, distancing and hand washing.
Even better since they are less contagious: npr.org/2021/06/12/100
1
2
I don’t think elimination or even suppression of colds is realistically going to happen, though. Independent of that it would be good if people didn’t go to work while sick of course
2
2
Seems likely we'll end up with much more effective mRNA flu vaccines and also vaccines covering the most common cold variants. It wasn't worth it previously because it would have been too hard to design and manufacture. It's super cheap to spin up a ton of mRNA vaccines though.
2
4
I don't mind colds so much but most of mine turn into sinus infections, so I'd sure love this
2
3
I'm not sure how many colds I've had in the past decade or so since it's hard to distinguish from allergies. I don't think I've had the flu since I made the wise decision to drop out of high school.
I'd happily get a flu vaccine that actually worked well though.
1
2
nature.com/articles/d4157
There's a whole bunch of them currently in trials listed there. There's a Moderna one combining it with a COVID-19 vaccine.