If symptoms of a cold are just the body fighting the cold, what is the real harm of being sick?

Question

If symptoms of a cold are just the body fighting the cold, what is the real harm of being sick?

In: Biology

Answer 1

The only reason the virus itself doesn’t do much is because your immune system reacts so swiftly and violently to it.

Without an immune reaction, the virus would slowly kill off too many healthy cells in (in the case of a cold) your lungs, making it impossible to breathe.

But because of your immune reaction, the virus doesn’t get the chance to do irreparable damage. The cost, of course, being the unpleasantness of the immune response. That’s why there aren’t symptoms caused by the virus itself – your immune system puts a stop to it before it can think about getting that bad.