Why do more people get it around the time when it gets cold? I can tell from personal experience I get cold symptoms when i don’t dress properly when it’s getting colder, or if I spend too much time in a room with AC in the summer. But it’s caused by a virus. What does the temperature have to do with the cold virus?
Also, is the virus wasn’t present would it be possible for us to spend time in cold weather without getting sick?
In: Biology
You don’t get the cold from lower temperatures. This is just a myth that some people believe, but there is a hint of truth there. Our immune systems are more compromised in the cold, which makes it easier for a virus to take hold. There is also the part about people spending more time together indoors when it’s cold, which increases spread. Many times, when you’re out in the cold, you don’t actually catch a cold even though you may experience some similar symptoms. Often it’s just the immune system having weird responses to the cold temperatures which can cause inflammation in the mucus membranes, making you sniffle even though you haven’t been infected by a virus.
The reason why we have no cure for it is a mix of a lot of reasons. There are over 200 viruses that causes, what we call, the “common cold”. They are very rapidly evolving viruses, so while you might be immune from X variation of virus A, when virus A evolves in a year, you won’t be immune to variant Z. The impact of the virus is incredibly mild, unless you are especially vulnerable, so there is very little incentive to put in any work to actually come up with any vaccines or cures. There are some vaccines for certain variations, but these are a lot less common and more severe. The immune response is also incredibly subjective. Some people might just get some mild sniffles for a couple of days, while some will be locked in bed for 2 weeks with massive fevers and chills. This, coupled with the massive amount of different viruses that causes the common cold, makes it incredibly difficult to make a vaccine, treatment, or cure that will help. The same thing happened with the COVID vaccine, but the likelihood of severe reactions was a LOT higher which increased incentive to make a vaccine and specific treatment options.
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